


Sigyn

by Much_Ado_Abt_Novels



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: A cross between Marvel and Myth, Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, Attempt at Humor, Blood and Violence, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Fluff and Smut, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Sex, Threats of Violence, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 49,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Much_Ado_Abt_Novels/pseuds/Much_Ado_Abt_Novels
Summary: Sigyn of myth is a tragic figure, mostly because her husband treats her abominably. But what if Loki really loved her?Drawing on Marvel's Loki and Norse Mythology, this story explores Loki's relationship with Sigyn, a girl of no consequence who falls in love with a prince. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and filled with spicy sex.*Also available to read on Wattpad.com*
Relationships: Loki & Sigyn, Loki/Sigyn, Sif/Thor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	1. The New Maid

**Sigyn**

“You’re sure about this, lass?” asked Brunhilda, the matronly head of staff. “There’s a reason most of his maids don’t last long.”

“I’m sure,” I said, lying. The truth was, I needed to get out of the kitchens before I died of boredom, and the dark prince of Asgard had always intrigued me. But maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew by volunteering to replace the last maid who had begged for a reassignment.

“All right, then,” said Brunhilda. “So long as you’re his maid, you do whatever he says. When you’ve had enough of his craziness, we’ll put you somewhere else. Off with you, now.”

I grabbed my mop and bucket and made for Prince Loki’s rooms. How hard could it be, really? I was used to people belittling me while I worked, making odd requests, and generally making my life miserable.

_But the prince has magic_ , whispered a voice in my head. _No one knows what he’s capable of, and he could make your life miserable in loads of new, creative ways._

I knocked on the door.

A few seconds later, the prince answered it, looking me up and down with an unreadable expression.

I had never been this close to him before. He was beautiful—no other word for it—with long raven hair slicked back, stunning green eyes, and cheekbones that would slice through my gaze if I stared at them too long.

I pulled myself together enough to spit out the introduction I’d rehearsed. “Greetings, Your Highness. I’m your new maid.”

He held open the door for me, never taking his eyes off me as I entered. “And what is your name?”

“Sigyn, sir.”

I stood in the antechamber to the prince’s rooms. Two doors led off it. The one I could see through led to a workspace cluttered with scrolls; the other was closed.

“Sigyn,” the prince said, twisting the syllables in a way that made me blush. “How exquisite.”

He was gentlemanly as he gave me a tour of his apartments, but something in his movements reminded me that he was a sorcerer and feared warrior. “And this is my bedroom,” he said, leading me through the second door.

The prince’s bedroom was lushly decorated in green, gold, and silver. Everything—from the carvings on the walls to the satin bedspread—dripped elegance. 

“It’s quite different from Thor’s room,” I said without thinking.

“You’ve been in my brother’s chambers?” came the prince’s icy voice, closer behind me than expected.

I whipped around, afraid I’d made a terrible misstep. “Only once or twice, sir, to clean.” I tried desperately not to say the wrong thing, though I wasn’t sure where I’d gone wrong in the first place. But I _had_ done something wrong; the prince’s face made that clear. “His rooms are like a hunting lodge: rough wood and blazing fireplaces. This is more…” Lavish. Impersonal. Like the decorating had been done by a caricature of himself or how he wanted to appear. “Royal,” I finished lamely.

I ducked my head, but I could feel the burn of his eyes on me.

And just like that, the moment was over. He released me from his gaze, informing me that he had to get back to work, but I could stay and clean as long as I didn’t disturb him. I curtseyed hastily.

~

Three weeks passed. The prince kept odd hours, so I never knew what to expect when I let myself into his rooms. He might be out at a meeting or holed up in his study, working on who-knew-what. He gave me a small bell to keep on my person that was enchanted to ring when he rang a matching one in his room, and it maintained no schedule. At five o’clock in the evening, I brought him lunch; at three in the morning, he needed a certain book fetched from the palace library. Over and over every day.

It was the hours that had done in the other maids, I decided one evening when the stupid bell rang just as I was laying down to go to bed. Groaning, I clambered into a dress, threw my hair in a bun, and lit a candle to walk to the prince’s rooms.

“Do you ever sleep, sir?” I mumbled by way of greeting.

I hadn’t expected him to answer, but he looked up, concerned, and took in my disheveled appearance. (As always, he was perfectly groomed.) “You are tired? Of course you are. That is my fault, I suppose.” It wasn’t an apology, but it was as close as a maid was likely to receive from a member of the royal family.

“What do you need, sir?” I asked.

“Loki.”

“Pardon?” Had he been shut up here alone for so long that he’d forgotten his own name?

He stood. “Please, call me Loki.”

It felt wrong to call the prince by his first name, but it felt wronger to disobey a direct command. “Ah, Loki then.”

He smiled in satisfaction, like he’d won something. “Good,” he said. “Could you bring me something to eat?”

“Of course, um, Loki.”

When I returned, he seemed to have shrunk inside himself, hesitant for the first time I’d known him. He took the tray but didn’t dismiss me as I’d expected. 

“Could I...that is, would you permit me to, to test an experiment on you? It is perfectly safe,” he hurried, “only, you mentioned that you were tired, and I would like to try this on someone other than myself for once.”

Perplexed, and curious despite myself, I asked, “What is it?”

“Ah,” he said, leading me to his desk and picking up a small, nondescript stone. “It is a device I have been working on that will put enemy soldiers to sleep on the battlefield, right where they stand. It could save many lives, if I could convince my father and brother that _not_ fighting might be the correct course of action sometimes.”

The suggestion felt improper, but I’d had a long week, and the promise of instant sleep was too tempting to turn down. “All right,” I said. “What should I do?”

“Come lay down,” he said. “I don’t want you to fall.” He led me to his bed, and now I knew this was improper. He guided me gently onto the mattress, which was more comfortable than I had expected.

Laying there inappropriately in Loki’s bed, I was struck by how handsome and devilishly tall he was.

He was in control of himself again, all awkwardness vanished. “Now, Sigyn, relax. I’m going to touch this stone to your forehead, and sleep should come instantly.” He brushed a lock of hair back from my face.

I closed my eyes, unable to take the intense, scientific look he was giving me. My last thought as he pressed the cool stone to my head was that there were many things a prince could do to a maidservant under the influence of magical sleep.

~

I woke and stretched groggily.

Loki sat in the corner reading, and when he saw me, he looked at a dial in his hand. “You have been asleep for three hours and ten minutes,” he announced, then strode to his desk to make a note.

The palace was silent, and I wondered if Loki had done something magical to his rooms to cancel noise. I rubbed my eyes and tried to smooth down my hair, acutely aware that it was the middle of the night and we were alone.

“Don’t,” he rasped, causing me to freeze. He was staring at me. “You look fine. You look… enchanting.” Loki’s eyes glowed in the candlelight as he advanced deliberately across the room. “I had every intention of remaining honorable tonight. But seeing you like this, in my bed…” Suddenly he froze, closed his eyes, and swallowed. “I’m going to go into my office and make some notes,” he said. “You may leave if you wish. I fully expect you to be gone when I return, and we can forget this ever happened. But if you stay,” he opened his eyes, “I will take it as consent.”

He bowed, stiff, and withdrew.

I let out a shaky breath I didn’t know I was holding, and a clock began ticking in my mind. I had to make my choice before Loki returned.

I stood up and immediately missed the warmth of his bed. Was I really contemplating staying? This was ridiculous. It had to be an enormous prank the prince was pulling on me. He couldn’t actually desire someone like me.

But I remembered the look in his eyes, and consequences be damned, I wanted him. Even if I’d be kicked out of his rooms and reassigned at first light, I wanted him.

I scurried back onto the bed and arranged my skirts around myself, tugging my blouse off my shoulder a bit so there could be no doubt. And I waited. 

Loki opened the door slowly. Closed it behind him. Met my eyes in the dark. “Well, well,” he said.

“You don’t have to look so smug about it,” I sniffed.

“On the contrary, my dear,” he said, at the foot of the bed now. “I believe I’m entitled to a little self-satisfaction.” He paused, and though he’d stated that my presence was consent enough, he asked for more. “You are certain? No vengeful lovers I’ll be injuring by taking you?”

I replied by crawling to him and kneeling so we were at the same height. I rested my hands on his shoulders, heart pounding, and leaned forward.

He closed the gap between our mouths faster than I could process, and I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me. His hands were hot on my waist, on my back, cupping my cheek as he kissed me into oblivion.

“Loki,” I breathed as he slid his mouth to my neck, pressing hot kisses to the sensitive skin under my ear. His lips traveled lower, and he worked down the row of buttons that closed my dress in the front. He could have simply undone the first few and tugged it off over my shoulders, but he seemed to enjoy exposing and kissing one inch of skin at a time.

The last foot of the dress was solid, so he bid me stand and let it pool around my feet. I still had on a shift, tied at the back, and stockings. I turned around so he could undo the shift’s laces.

He kissed the side of my neck as he let the garment fall, baring me to his eyes. “Ah, Sigyn,” he groaned. He cupped my breasts and pushed his erection into my backside.

The contrast between my nudity and his clothedness was sinful, but it wasn’t fair. I amended it quickly by turning and pushing his coat off his shoulders. The rest of his outfit was too complicated for me to fathom, but he guided my hands to all the snaps and buckles, and soon he was naked before me.

I didn’t have time to savor the sight before he leaned me back onto the bed. He rolled my stockings down my legs while I stared at the ceiling. Could this be happening? Was a prince of Asgard really between my legs right now, pulling off my stockings and kissing my thigh?

Then his mouth found the place between my legs, and I didn’t care if I was dreaming. I moaned and rutted against his face like a whore.

He teased apart my folds with his tongue, circled my clit, and sucked it into his mouth.

“Oh, gods,” I keened, and I remembered that the humans worshiped him as one. I didn’t blame them.

He raised his head, lips glossy from eating me out, and I pulled him on top of me, tasting myself on his tongue. “Are you a virgin?” he asked, pulling back enough to form the question.

I shook my head. “Are you?” I asked. I seriously doubted it.

“No. And are you eating Idun’s other apples?”

A euphemism. Was I on birth control? “Yes,” I replied.

He leaned over me, his weight on one arm, and lined himself up with the other hand. He held my gaze as he slid into me, inch after inch stretching and filling me so beautifully I wanted to cry.

“Loki…” then, “oh shit,” when he began to move. Nonsense spilled from my mouth in a broken stream. “Ah, yes. Oh, oh, fuck.”

He was large and blissful, thrusting at just the right pace to drive me insane. He tried to kiss me again, but his torso was too long for the angle to be right, so instead he laid on top of me, our chests pressed together, and buried his face in my hair.

I clutched at his back, awed by the gorgeously-formed shoulder in front of my face. On a particularly deep thrust, struck by a sudden urge, I bit down.

Loki pulled back, as shocked as I was. A grin slid over his handsome features. “So that’s how you want to play,” he said.

I whined at the loss of him when he pulled out of me, but then he flipped me onto my stomach and entered me again, pulling my head back by a fistful of hair.

“You like that?” he groaned, pushing his hips into my ass.

“Yes, fuck, yes.” His body was covering me, surrounding me, filling me. I was overwhelmed with sensation, able only to take what he gave. I fisted the sheets as the tension inside me built. “Loki, I’m close.”

“Cum for me, darling. Let me feel you clenching around my cock.”

With a strangled cry, I did, and he followed close behind.

We stilled, breathing heavily. Realizing his hand was still clenched in my hair, he released it, and my head fell onto my arms.

Loki pulled out of me, and his weight disappeared from the bed. Had he realized that fucking me was a mistake? Was this my cue to grab my things and leave? But no, he returned with a wet rag and wiped me down gently. “Stay the rest of the night,” he whispered into my skin, and I gladly agreed.

~

As the first rays of sunlight trickled over the horizon, I crept back into the room I shared with another servant.

She was tying her shoes when I arrived, ready to start the day’s chores. She whistled at the sight of me, and I feared she knew what I’d done. But she said, “He kept you out all night? The bastard. Get some sleep love, and if he calls for you again, I’d quit if I was you.”

“I don’t know,” I said as she left, “I’m kind of getting used to it.”


	2. Power

**Sigyn**

I slept for a couple of hours then got up and dressed in my uniform. I took extra care in my appearance, craning my neck to view myself in the small mirror in my room. I braided my hair in a crown around my head, heart pounding with the thought of seeing Loki again after last night.

The kitchens were bustling, and nobody paid me any mind as I piled his breakfast tray with the sweetest foods I could find: strawberries and pastries and cream.

What would he say to me when I showed up at his door as usual? What would he think? I was frightened that I had ruined everything by sleeping with the prince, or that he would think nothing of the occurrence at all.

Outside his chambers, I balanced the tray on my hip to knock on the door. Then I righted it in my hands and waited.

He opened it. “Won’t you come in?” he asked, stepping aside.

I couldn’t look at him directly. My cheeks flamed at the memory of how easily and wantonly I had spread my legs for him last night. Setting the breakfast tray on a table, I retreated to the door. “Will you be needing anything else, sir?”

“Sigyn,” he said. “Have I done something wrong?”

I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know myself why exactly I shied away from him. Still, there was something awry with the idea of us together, and I had learned to trust my instincts. I shook my head.

“Come here.”

I obeyed, seating myself in the chair next to him at his prompting. I wrung my hands in my apron.

“Look at me.”

I finally did, and the sight nearly stole my breath. Loki leaned across the small table toward me, long legs splayed underneath him. His achingly handsome features were twisted in concern. 

“I’ve thought about practically nothing but you,” he said in a low, smooth voice. “Your hair, your skin, your smell. I want you back in my bed as often as possible. Did you enjoy last night?”

“Very much,” I whispered.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, eyes roaming down my body. My stomach chose that moment to growl, and his eyes shot back to my face. “Have you eaten? No? Here.” He pressed a ripe strawberry to my lips, decadent.

This moment should be perfect. The tang of the strawberry on my tongue, the lewd pleasure I received from him feeding me, the way he couldn’t take his eyes off me.

“You’re crying,” he observed, and the second I realized I was, I also realized why.

I shot to my feet, wiping my eyes furiously and stepping backward. “I— we can’t do this. There’s a difference in power between us that makes everything about this wrong.”

He stood as well. He tried to joke, “I’d hoped you’d be a little less intimidated after seeing me naked.”

“People will talk,” I protested.

“Let them.”

“That’s all well and good for you, but you’re the prince! When this… affair… ends, when word gets out, you’ll still be the prince, but I’ll be the tramp who tried to fuck her way up the ladder.” I took a deep breath, trying to make him see. “I’m sorry for only realizing this now. I don’t mean to be a tease, but this can’t continue, Your Highness.”

He advanced a few steps toward me. “I asked you to call me ‘Loki.’”

“And you called me ‘Sigyn’ without asking,” I accused.

He recoiled as if he’d been struck.

“We’re not equals,” I finished. “This won’t end well for me. Do you understand?”

He did. The pain in his face showed that he understood completely.

“Thank you for last night. It was wonderful,” I said. “I’ll submit a transfer request, and until then, you can call me if you need anything, like before.”

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

~

**Loki**

The knife left my hand and struck the target with a thud.

_Stupid, stupid. How could I have been such an imbecile?_

I whirled around and released another knife.

Had I truly been so pampered in my upbringing that I believed I could take whatever I wanted, no matter the harm it did to anyone else? With a cry, I hurled my last knife, and it buried in a tree with a sickening crunch.

Sigyn said our differences in social position made a flirtation of equals impossible. But perhaps I could do something about that.

I could talk to the head of staff, or any number of workers in the palace, but to single out a girl for such an enormous promotion out of the blue, I thought more credibility would be lent to the odd circumstance if the order came all the way from the top.

I knocked on the door to Odin’s council chamber, waited five seconds, then let myself in.

As usual, the Allfather was surrounded by advisors and nobles, jostling one another tactfully for a position near the throne. The king sat at the head of a table with a map spread before him. Though at a lower height than the rest, it was clear who held the power in the room.

“Loki,” Odin said in a voice like distilled thunder, “I am in a meeting.” Every word, every expression between us was a performance for the courtiers’ benefit; and I sometimes wondered if it wasn’t for our own as well.

“Aren’t you always?” I replied. “I have come to ask a favor of you.”

He leaned against the armrest of his chair, face inscrutable. “Ask it then.”

He knew I wanted to speak to him alone, but by making me voice the request, he gave the appearance of openness to his followers. He showed it was I who had something to hide. “I’d prefer to speak to you in private,” I said.

With a wave, Odin dismissed the audience.

My footsteps on the polished tile echoed as I crossed the room. “There is a girl, Sigyn, my maid,” I said, aware that every word I gave him was fodder to use against me later. “I would like her to be promoted as far as possible. I would like you to do it, so people ask fewer questions.”

Odin leaned back, appraising me with his one eye. His single eye was powerful, taking away even the choice of where to look at him. At length, he said, “You care for this maid.”

“I do,” I said.

“And why should I?”

_Because I never ask for something without reason. Because I’ve served you for millennia without so much as a “thank you” in return. Because you stripped my birthright from me, stole me from my home, and let me work out the truth on my own._ With as much vehemence as I could muster, I slammed my palms on his desk and hissed, “You owe me.”

He didn’t flinch, just cocked his head and looked at me with new consideration. “If I do this,” he said, “the girl will be bound to you. You will be responsible for her, and her situation will depend on your conduct.”

There was a trap in his words, but as usual, I couldn’t pin down where. “Fine,” I said.

“Swear it.”

Just like him to turn a favor into another binding oath. Words had power, and the God of Runes was the greatest wordsmith of all. “I swear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are enjoying this story, please, please comment! Comments make my day =]


	3. A New Beginning

**Sigyn**

“Well, girly, you have friends in high places,” Brunhilda told me, intruding on my melancholy reverie.

“I— what?” I asked, unsure what she meant.

“You’ve been specially requested to attend Lady Freya herself. What you did to deserve it, I’ll never know, but the Allfather singled you out.”

There was a crowd gathering around my room now, wanting a piece of the excitement. My roommate was in a flutter. “A lady’s maid,” she gasped. “You sly thing, you never said a word!”

“I didn’t know,” I said. Then I realized: Loki. He had to be behind this.

“Pack your things,” Brunhilda commanded. “Quickly now. You’re to meet the Lady Freya immediately.”

In a daze, I threw my few belongings in a rucksack and followed the head of staff through the crowd. A man whistled at me. A friendly woman’s voice called, “Remember us when you’re off having tea with goddesses.”

Tea with goddesses. Right.

A lady’s maid in Asgard was a servant, but just barely. She reported to her lady directly, not to any chiefs of staff, and she was expected to attend social gatherings with her lady, mingling with the upper echelon on nearly equal footing.

Loki. I would see him, possibly often, and in respectable contexts. For a noble to court a lady’s maid would not be unheard of. For a prince, it would be unusual, but not the disgrace of consorting with cleaning staff.

Before I could dwell on the implications of my new position, I was swept into Lady Freya’s rooms. They burst with pink frills and lace.

The lady herself lounged on a chaise. Her waist-length golden tresses spilled around her in an effortlessly beautiful manner, and her blue gown hugged her long frame.

I curtsied. “It is an honor to meet you, my lady.”

She stood gracefully and walked around me, eyeing me up and down. I held myself straighter under her inspection. “Well,” she said when she’d returned in front of me, “you have a good body. Your face could be gorgeous with a little work. Idony will teach you how to do your makeup.”

She gestured at one of three women standing behind her, all lean and without flaw. I feared I wouldn’t fit in here.

“I was just thinking that I could use another lady’s maid when the Allfather recommended you to me,” Freya continued. For some reason, her voice reminded me of wind blowing through a field of flowers. “I trust we shall be great friends.” She smiled.

I could do this, I told myself. I could look pretty and gossip with this goddess and drink tea. It wouldn’t be worse than any of my other jobs, just different.

I smiled back at her and ducked my head coyly like I’d seen ladies do before. “I trust we shall as well.”

~

**Loki**

I saw her the next day, at lunch in the Great Hall. I didn’t normally eat with the other palace residents, but Freya did, and she brought her attendants with her. Sigyn was resplendent in a pale pink gown that draped from her shoulders and wrists. Her lashes glistened, and her chocolate hair had been curled and tucked in a beaded net.

Every moment not spent staring at her was a moment wasted.

I managed to catch her eye and nod toward a nearby hall. Thankfully she got the message, arriving at the alcove a few minutes after I.

She was wearing perfume, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to pin her against the wall and bury my face in her neck.

She spoke first. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“I suppose I have you to thank for this?” she asked, fingering her dress.

“I don’t mean to buy your affections,” I said, brushing my knuckles against her cheek. “I wanted you to have the choice of whether or not to continue with me. If the answer is no, I understand, and this position is still yours. But if you’d like to...see me, I hope it will make things easier.”

“You should have asked me before stepping in and altering my job.”

I dropped my hand. _Shit._ “You are right, of course,” I said. And I should have talked it over with her before binding our fates before Odin, but there hadn’t been time; he did not leave offers on the table long. “I apologize, Sigyn. This is new to me.”

The corners of her mouth lifted in amusement. “Somehow, I doubt that arranging clandestine meetings is new to you.”

“Yes, but not with… feelings.” Did that sound as stupid as it felt? “Fire and frost, this is hard—”

But Sigyn cut me off with a kiss, and I was back in familiar territory. Her lips were soft and sweet and divine.

“You taste like cherries,” I muttered, and she smiled.

“I’ve been scrubbed and polished like brass,” she said. “I don’t understand half the things the other lady’s maids told me about cosmetics, and I’m afraid to eat in any of these dresses lest I soil them. You’re lucky you’re so good looking.”

I kissed her again. “You look stunning in them. I was afraid that Freya wouldn’t take you, actually. She likes her handmaidens to be less attractive than she is.”

Sigyn bit her lip and flushed a deep rose. “You think I’m as pretty as the Goddess of Beauty?”

“More so,” I said, leaning in for another kiss. Now that they were allowed, I couldn’t get enough of them. “When are you free, darling? When can I see you again?”

Between kisses, she responded, “Tomorrow night, after the ball. And Tyr’s-days are my day off. I have to go now,” she pulled back, “but I’ll see you tomorrow after I finish undressing Lady Freya.”

“Come to my room,” I said.

“I will.”

~

The ball was held, as they all were, to give the royal residents something to do. Solstices, equinoxes, harvests, and hunting trips were all reasons to throw a party, and for the first time, I was glad my mother forced me to attend.

Because Sigyn was there, shining like the moon.

All four of Freya’s lady’s maids wore silver dresses, and the goddess herself was in gold. The intent, I presumed, had been to direct attention onto Freya, and for most of the men, it worked. But not I.

I nodded politely to Freya in greeting as I passed by her. She returned my nod and promptly lost interest in me; a second son was worthless to someone like her.

“My lady,” I directed to Sigyn. “Would you do me the honor of dancing this next with me?”

I generally abhorred clichés, but tonight my mind spun with them. Sigyn felt so perfect in my arms. I noticed nothing but her as we glided across the room. “What are you thinking, my dear?” I asked, using conversation as an excuse to pull her closer.

“In all honesty, I’m thinking about meeting you tonight,” she whispered, barely audible over the music.

I had to close my eyes for a moment to steady myself. “What about it?”

“How I never got to taste you, and tonight I’d like to.”

“Gods, Sigyn, don’t make me carry you out of this party right now.”

“I wish,” she said as the song came to a close, “I wish I could dance with only you all evening.”

I grinned slyly. I was good at grinning slyly. “You can,” I said and pulled her into a shadowy corner of the room where I morphed into the figure of another man in her arms.

She gasped, fingering my short hair and new clothes.

“Does this make you uneasy?” I asked.

“No, but, won’t everyone know it’s you? You have the same eyes.”

I faltered and took a moment to return to the music’s rhythm. I stared at her. “No one has ever noticed that before,” I said. “Or if they have, they’ve never commented on it.”

“Well, it is good to know that you can’t ever fool me. I was afraid I’d have to watch my step with every person I spoke to, wondering if it were you in disguise.”

It would have been fun to tease her—my shapeshifting ability lent itself to extraordinary feats of mischief-making—but I was also comforted that she could see through the pains I took to hide from everyone else.

~

**Sigyn**

Lady Freya needed help getting out of her ballgown and into her nightgown, which was no less lavish. We brushed out her hair and put away her jewelry, and then we were dismissed for the night; she was expecting a gentleman caller.

I followed the girls down the hall to our rooms, bade them goodnight, and stepped inside mine just long enough to check my appearance in a (much larger than normal) mirror before sneaking away to Prince Loki’s rooms.

He pulled me inside at the first knock and pressed me against the door with a kiss. His mouth slanted against mine with all the ferocity of a man who hadn’t had sex in over twenty-four hours.

“I missed you,” he said, and I echoed the statement.

“I’m glad we can— just, thank you,” I stammered self-consciously, aware of the considerable compliment he had paid me.

“Think nothing of it,” he breathed against my neck, and with a snap of his fingers, our clothing vanished.

I screamed. Not a proper “a wolf is chasing me” scream, but the small shriek of a woman who just lost the nicest dress she’d ever owned. “Where did they go?” I asked, pushing against Loki’s chest and trying to ignore his distracting state of undress. “That was new today! All of my clothes are new today! Lady Freya made me burn the pieces that weren’t returnable uniforms.”

“I can bring them back,” he assured me, pulling me into a kiss.

I pulled away. “Yes, but where have they _gone_?”

He was failing to hold back a smile at my distress. “That was meant to save time, you know. But if it means that much to you, then here.” He snapped, returning our outfits to our bodies, then snapped again, and they appeared on a nearby chair, folded neatly.

My head swam. Magic was something done by priestesses and gods divining the future or performing miracles on Midgard. It wasn’t something used in front of me for the frivolous purpose of saving a few moments to undress.

“Are you all right?” Loki asked. “You know, you look adorable when you’re flustered.”

“Yes,” I said, pulling myself together. “I’m fine.” After a moment in which neither of us moved, “You can kiss me again if you’d like.”

He swept my feet out from under me and carried me to the bedroom, depositing me on the coverlet and crawling on top of me.

Then gowns, magic, and everything but him were gone from my mind. His bodyweight pressed me into the bed, pinning me between silken sheets and warm skin. I slid my leg over his and tangled my fingers in his hair.

“Tell me you’ve needed me as much as I’ve needed you,” Loki said, sucking a bruise onto my breast.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought about you when I was alone last night. Oh!” He bit down on my nipple then laved his tongue over the spot, soothing it. “At the dance, with your hand on my back, I wanted it lower. I wanted to feel it on my skin.”

He moved his mouth to my other breast, giving it the same attention while kneading the first one with a practiced hand.

“That feels good,” I told him, running my fingers through his hair. It was thick and luxurious.

“Tell me what you want,” he said in a breathy voice.

More forward than I’d ever been, but enjoying it, I said, “I’d still like to taste you.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” He flipped us over, leaning back against the headrest expectantly.

I kissed his lips then traveled downward—over his neck, sternum, to the line of wiry hair at his navel. When I licked a stripe up the underside of his cock, he let out the most enticing moan. I swirled my tongue around his tip, then slid down until I gagged, pulled up, and repeated the motion.

My hair was spilling onto my face, so Loki collected it in one hand at the base of my neck—not tugging, just holding.

I slid up and down his cock, pumping with one fist what I couldn’t reach. This was everything I had imagined it to be. Loki was long and thick and solid in my throat, his body tense with pleasure, brow furrowed.

“Oh darling,” he purred, “you are incredible. Ah, fuck.”

I hummed with appreciation at his praise, and his hips jolted with the effort of not thrusting up into my mouth.

“Come here, sweetheart,” he said at last, guiding me back to his mouth.

I kissed him with all the intensity I could muster, letting him know how much I’d enjoyed pleasuring him. His tongue probed my mouth while his hands found my thighs and directed me to kneel over him. I sank onto his cock slowly, savoring the friction between us.

“Damn,” Loki cursed. He rolled his hips, and I gasped. Up and down, we moved together, grinding out our gratification as one.

“Loki,” I asked something that had been on my mind all day, “if you’re a shapeshifter, ah, can you change the size of your… you know?”

“Of course,” he replied, grinning wickedly.

I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, but I couldn’t, not when with every thrust now he was pushing a tiny bit deeper. “Oh, Norns.” I fell forward, bracing my hands on either side of his head. _Odin’s beard_ , he felt incredible, reaching spots inside me I didn’t know existed. When the pressure bordered on pain, I gasped, “That’s enough,” and the magical cock-growth ceased.

I wasn’t riding him anymore; he was holding my waist in place and thrusting up into me. Perspiration dotted his brow, and his lovely mouth was parted. “I’m not going to last much longer,” he groaned.

“Neither am I.”

The pressure built, and he came with a grunt and a few sloppy thrusts.

The spill of his seed inside me triggered my climax, and I leaned back my head and closed my eyes, relishing the waves of sensation.

When it was over, I slid off his dick and slumped on his chest. My breaths were heavy and uneven.

“How are you feeling?” Loki asked after a minute. I just then noticed that he’d been trailing his fingertips in nonsense swirls over my back and thigh.

“Good,” I said, wishing I could put into words the satisfaction that permeated my whole being. “I feel good. A little sleepy.”

He waved his hand, and the cum leaking onto us both disappeared.

“I have more questions about that,” I mumbled, but I didn’t have the energy to voice them.

He chuckled. “Rest now, darling.” He kissed the top of my head and pulled a sheet over us. “I will wake you in time to prepare yourself for work.”


	4. The Bathhouse

**Sigyn**

One day, Freya asked us to accompany her to the public baths. The bathhouses were adjacent to the palace grounds and open to all living in Asgard. Both the men’s and women’s were grand buildings of polished, blue marble, with fogged glass windows and alcoves for relative privacy.

We followed Freya into the women’s bathhouse and undressed, leaving our belongings in the care of a maidservant. Freya’s body glowed with health, and no blemish dared touch her skin. She did not need cleaning; she was here to see and be seen.

A second door from the changing rooms led to the bathing chamber. It was huge, and water, ranging in depth from one to four feet, flooded nearly all of it. Benches and pedestals, half-submerged, provided places to sit or rest items. Fountains trickled and gushed, and the air was thick with steam, the scent of soaps, and the sounds of chattering women.

Freya found a friend and dismissed us.

Shy in front of all these people, I padded down the steps into warm water and sought a quiet corner. There was a bench against a wall that looked nice, framed on one side by a sheet of water cascading from the ceiling. The only other occupant was a redheaded woman.

“Pardon me,” I said, setting my soap and towel on a dry spot near her.

“Why Sigyn, what a pleasant surprise,” said the woman, and I peered at her closer.

I knew those emerald eyes. “Loki?” I gasped, fighting the urge to cover myself. What in Odin’s name…? “This is a _women’s_ bathhouse, Loki,” I said, my mind racing.

She gestured down at herself, eyes twinkling with mischief.

And indeed, her body was womanly. Looking at her soft curves, the word “voluptuous” came to mind. She was comfortable, cocky even, ringlets of fiery hair cascading over her shoulder.

I glanced furtively around, worried that someone would notice Loki, but no one paid us any mind.

“You look flustered, my dear,” she said, sashaying toward me, and it took all my willpower to keep my eyes on her face.

It felt so odd to hear Loki’s inflections in the voice of a woman. “What are you doing here?” I asked, feeling supremely stupid as I did so.

“Why, bathing, of course. However, I’ll admit that seeing you naked was a strong secondary motivation.” She smirked, and then she trailed soft fingers down my arm. “I was not disappointed.”

“Loki,” I hissed, “people will see!”

“Ah.” She faced the wider room and made what looked like several rude hand gestures, muttering under her breath. “There,” she said. “Now, no one can see us, and they will be deterred from coming near this corner.” She lounged on the bench, just out of the water, and spread her long legs without shame. “Come here,” she purred.

I obeyed.

She patted the space in front of her. “Sit.”

I turned around and perched between her legs, watching the bathhouse’s other occupants anxiously. From what I could tell, Loki’s words were true; no one so much as glanced our way as she slid a bar of soap up my stomach and over my breast.

“So tense,” she said into my ear, running the soap down my arm, up my thigh. “Does this form displease you?”

The feelings of her breasts at my back and her hand gently washing me were doing things to me. I had never before considered myself attracted to women—was it just Loki? Did that count? “Pardon me,” I said, finding my voice. “It’s not every day you find out you’re bisexual.”

She laughed, and my admission must have spurred her on because she hooked her ankles around mine and spread my legs.

I gasped. I knew, intellectually, that no one could see us, but there were still _people_ all around, and being so brazen in public was wrong, wasn’t it? The danger of what we were doing sent a wave of heat to my stomach.

Her right hand danced across my thigh, pulling back whenever it neared the spot that ached to be touched. “Do you want this?” she whispered, her mouth hot on my neck.

My eyes found Freya, oblivious to her lady’s maid needy and panting at Loki’s hands. I nodded.

“I need you to say it, darling.” She skimmed my folds, and I nearly keened.

“Yes, Loki! Please.”

Then her fingers were rubbing and sliding through the place between my legs, and my head lolled back against her shoulder. She kissed my neck and kneaded my breast with her left hand, the sensations threatening to overpower me.

“Loki…”

“Quiet now; they can still hear you.”

And though the running water probably hid any sounds I made anyway, I snapped my mouth shut.

She slid a finger inside me, letting out a little hiss that nearly undid me. “So wet,” she said between kisses. In and out slid her finger, then she added another, expertly coaxing pleasure from my cunt.

_Loki_ , was all I could think, and if I let myself speak, all that would come out would be a mantra of _Loki, Loki, Loki_. I became aware that I was rocking my hips into her hand, but I was too far gone to worry about pride.

Her fingers delved in and out of my folds, her palm rubbing my clit with every motion. I was trembling, tight with tension, and when she nipped my ear, I nearly came.

“What a gorgeous, breathless little thing you are,” Loki said, increasing the pace. “I want to feel you clench around my fingers.”

I would soon if she kept this up. I was strained tighter than a bowstring, aching for release.

In another minute, she pushed me over the edge, and it was all I could do not to groan and give away our position. She finger-fucked me through my orgasm, waiting until I’d stilled to pull her hand away.

I ran my fingers through my hair, panting. “Do you want me to return the favor?” I asked, unsure what she expected would happen now.

“Another time, perhaps.”

I twisted in her lap and crushed my lips against hers.

“Mm.” She pulled away, smirking. “Stop that before I change my mind. I believe Freya is looking for you.”

I could see the goddess peering around, and with a heavy sigh, I stood to rejoin her.


	5. The Contest

**Loki**

I was never good at impulse restraint when drunk, and I got drunk far too often for the gods’ peace of mind.

One evening, a few months after meeting Sigyn, I was enjoying one of Asgard’s lavish parties, and hey, the wine was free. Thor drank more ale than I could consume in a hundred mortal lifetimes, yet I was the one who couldn’t hold my liquor. Life wasn’t fair.

Anyway, the warrior Sif was sitting next to me, and for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair. It fell thick and dark down her back in a ponytail. It would be so easy just to cut it off. One swipe of a knife, and…

People were staring at me. I looked down and was just as shocked as any of them to see Sif’s ponytail in my hand.

In an instant, she had me on my back on the ground, a dagger at my throat. “Just what,” she said in a steely voice, “do you think you are doing?” My, that woman was terrifying, even with her now-ragged cap of hair.

I held up my hands in what I hoped was an innocent and placating gesture. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m the God of Mischief, and if I don’t do something mischievous every now and then, I’ll lose all respect.”

She was unmoved.

Thor growled at me, attracting the attention of the last souls in the room who weren’t already watching these events with horrified fascination. “Put Lady Sif’s hair back,” he ordered.

Did I need to explain it to him? “I can’t,” I said. “Even I can’t magically reattach hair once it has been chopped off.”

Thor, to his credit, was a hel of a friend to those close to him—loyal to a fault, making up for a lack of brains with an excess of brawn and enthusiasm. When he removed Sif from my person, I hoped for a split second that I had been accepted under his protection of friendship. But alas, he was on the side of Sif, and he had only removed her so that he could lift me by the front of my shirt and shake me. “If you don’t fix Lady Sif’s hair, I will break every bone in your body one by one. And when you heal them, I’ll break them one by one again. And when they heal—”

I got the picture. Lots of broken bone fun time for Loki to look forward to. “All right!” I said, the promise of pain sobering me up. “I have an idea. The dwarves are master craftsmen, right? What if they made Sif living hair extensions that bonded to her head and grew like real hair?” Seeing Sif’s less-than-impressed look, I added, “And they could be made of gold.”

“As long as the gold is black,” she said. “I like my black hair.”

I was throwing out such wild promises, what was one more? “Black gold.”

Thor set me down. “And how will you convince the dwarves to forge such a creation for you?”

“Leave that to me.”

~

_Come on, Loki_ , I thought to myself. _Use that big brain of yours._

The Maggots already had all the gold and gems they could ever want, living in the ground, so simple payment would not tempt them. To pull this off would require trickery.

Luckily, trickery was my specialty.

I could think of two groups of dwarves skilled enough and vain enough for my purposes, and I visited the more skilled and vain bunch first: the four sons of Ivaldi. Down into the earth I went, to Svartalfheim, the land of the dwarves lit by glowing wells of magma and stinking of sulfur.

“Greetings, oh sons of Ivaldi!” I announced, waltzing into their forge.

The four dwarves, nearly identical, turned their sunken eyes on me. “What do you want?” asked one of them.

“A fabulous opportunity is before you, gentlemen,” I said. “The gods of Asgard are holding a contest to determine who are the best craftsmen in the Nine Realms, and you have been chosen as contestants!”

“Who are the others?”

“The brothers Brokk and Eitri,” I said.

One of them spat at the ground. “We can beat them any day. Tell us what we must do.”

This was easy. “Create three treasures to present to the gods. One of them must be locks of living gold hair, colored black. The other two are for Odin, the Big Man himself, and for Frey of the Vanir.”

They spoke amongst themselves for a moment, then said, “We will do it.”

“Right. Work on! I’m off to inform the other contestants.”

I gave the same spiel to Brokk and Eitri, but they were more resistant. Brokk peered at me as if attempting to read my mind. “You are a conniving one, Loki Laufeyson,” he said. “I don’t trust you as far as Eitri can throw you. How do we know this contest is not some trick?”

I spread my hands. “The gods are interested in determining once and for all who the finest craftsmen are. If you would like to forfeit…”

“No, we will participate,” Brokk said. “But you must have a personal stake in the contest. If we win, your head is ours.”

I fumbled. This was not going well. “You see, I’m rather attached to my head, and—”

“Your head,” he repeated.

“Fine,” I agreed. I just had to make sure the sons of Ivaldi won. It couldn’t be hard; Thor would be so delighted with Sif’s magical hair that no gift could match it. But just to be certain, I stuck around their workshop as a literal fly on the wall.

Brokk worked the bellows while his brother crafted the metal. As they set up, they talked about me, unaware that I listened in.

“The Trickster’s head will make a fine paperweight,” said Eitri.

“Indeed,” replied Brokk. “Or perhaps you can make a well like Mimir’s that will keep it alive so it can give us clever ideas for eternity.” They guffawed, an unattractive sound.

I wanted to be home in my warm bed, with Sigyn, instead of this miserable cave. I made a mental note to avoid all caves in the future.

“Now brother,” Eitri said, “remember to keep the bellows pumping steadily. Too much heat or too little will ruin everything.”

Brokk took his place at the bellows and began stoking the fire. Eitri shaped a lump of gold into a band, and I got an idea.

I flew down to Brokk’s hand and bit it, hard, but his pumping didn’t falter. Eitri completed the band and dunked it in a bucket of water to cool.

Again, Brokk pumped and Eitri forged. I flew to Brokk’s neck, and at the critical moment, bit it hard enough to draw blood. But he ignored the pain, and the second gift was complete.

“This is the final piece,” said Eitri. “Keep the forge a consistent temperature.” He got to work.

This was my last chance. As he pumped the bellows, I bit Brokk’s face and eyelids, covering them with stinging, bleeding wounds. At last, he cried out in pain and swatted me away, taking one hand off the bellows for just a second.

But that was enough. “I don’t know what happened at the end there,” Eitri growled when he dunked the third creation in steaming water. “You almost cost us the whole enterprise! But I think the work I was able to complete was enough to please the gods. We shall see.”

Back in Asgard’s great hall, Odin, Thor, and Frey, the three judges, sat in curious anticipation. The two groups of dwarves were there with their gifts, as well as numerous Asgardians eager to see how the contest played out. I spotted Sigyn out of the corner of my eye, and my heart jolted.

I myself presented the gifts from the sons of Ivaldi. “Oh mighty Odin, King and Lord of Asgard, this first treasure is for you.” I handed him a handsome spear carved up and down with runes. “Its name is Gungnir. When thrown, it will never miss its mark, and oaths sworn on it are unbreakable.” I knew he’d like that; Odin simply adored oaths.

While the audience _ooh_ ed and _ahh_ ed, Odin’s face was impassive.

“For Frey of the summer harvest, I present the ship Skidbladnir.”

“Where is it?” asked Frey.

“In my hand,” I replied dramatically, showing the room the silver compass I held. “Not only will this ship always have fair winds to sail by, but it can also fold up like a cloth into this compass. You can carry it with you wherever you go.” I dropped the compass into his waiting palm.

“An excellent gift!” he said.

“And finally, for the mighty Thor of thunderstorms,” I turned to my brother, “I give you living, growing hair made out of black gold.”

Sif stepped forward, glaring daggers at me, to accept the tresses from the son of Ivaldi. As she put the wig over her head, the metallic strands bonded to her choppy ones, leaving a seamless head of luxurious hair, as dark as the night and gleaming.

Thor pounded his fist on his armrest in approval. “Fantastic! Lady Sif, you look even fiercer and lovelier than usual!”

She tossed her new hair over her shoulders, trying it out. “I’d thank you, Loki, but you were only remedying a problem you created.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” I drawled.

“Now,” said Brokk from the corner of the room, “for our treasures.”

I stood back, wracked with nerves. Nothing could top those gifts, right? Right?

“This is Draupnir,” Brokk told Odin, handing him a golden armband. “Every ninth night, it will produce eight identical gold rings, thereby multiplying your wealth indefinitely.”

Odin remained stoic even as he slipped the band up his arm to his bicep.

Eitri lifted a cloth off a large, glistening metal boar. “This, Lord Frey, is Gullenbursti, the golden-bristled one. He will pull your chariot across the sky and sea, glowing to light the way.”

“This is an excellent gift, too,” Frey said.

The last treasure was the one I had sabotaged, but the brothers looked confident enough to make me uneasy. I wrung my hands.

“And this,” announced Brokk, placing the final gift in front of Thor, “is the war hammer Mjolnir. Its handle is a little short, which is my fault, but I hope you can look past that flaw. It is unbreakable. Only the worthy can lift it. When spun, it will give you the ability to fly.”

That was so many things. _Please let that be all._

“And no matter how far it is thrown, it will always return to your hand.”

Thor was grinning ear to ear. “This is the mightiest weapon I have ever seen! The shortness of the handle is nothing.”

Frighteningly, all the other gods seemed to be in agreement. “This hammer, in Thor’s hands, will protect us from the frost giants,” said Frey. 

Odin nodded. “It is the best treasure of them all.”

“But, but what about Sif’s hair?” I stuttered, very anxious now for my head, which I would rather keep if possible. “And the ship that folds up into a tiny, pocket-sized ship, and the spear…” But no one was paying me any attention.

“A final vote,” called Odin. “Those in favor of Brokk and Eitri’s gifts?”

“Aye,” said Thor enthusiastically.

“Aye,” said Frey.

“Aye,” said Odin, sealing my fate.

Brokk turned to me, grinning wickedly, and slid a finger across his throat.

Fuck.


	6. Silenced

**Sigyn**

I watched in horror as the dwarf Brokk explained his and Loki’s wager. Loki was going to lose his head? I was just getting to know him, and now, without warning, he would be killed in front of me.

Why hadn’t he told the other gods? If they had known, they surely would not have voted Brokk and Eitri the winners of the stupid contest. Even still, I looked to the king and prince with the hope that they would save him.

So did Loki. “Thor,” he pleaded, his face the picture of misery.

Thor’s whole demeanor had changed. Where a moment ago he’d been carefree and excited, now he was hunched over himself. “I’m sorry, Loki,” he said, “but a promise is a promise. I can not help you.”

Loki turned to Odin in desperation. “Father.”

But the Allfather’s face was stone cold. It was terrible, but I sympathized with them. I knew they couldn’t be seen freeing Loki from an oath he’d made of his own free will. It was a dreadful position for a parent to be in.

I blinked, and Loki was a man no longer but a bird of prey making for the ceiling. But Eitri caught him by the leg before he’d flown two feet and forced him to change back.

Brokk advanced on him with a knife.

“Wait, wait!” Loki shrieked in a last-ditch effort to save himself. “We agreed that you could have my head, but we said nothing about my neck! As my neck wasn’t part of the deal, you can’t touch it.”

Brokk paused. “But, I can’t cut off your head without touching your neck.”

“Exactly! So I guess you won’t be taking my head home after all.”

Oh, thank the Norns! Thor was perking up, looking as relieved as I felt, and even Odin had a hint of a smile.

Brokk snarled and threw his knife to the ground with a clang. “You and your slippery, tricky words!” Then an idea came to him. “In fact, we would all be better off if you couldn’t speak.”

Couldn’t speak? A new fear glowed in the pit of my stomach.

“Allfather,” Brokk said, “would it be within my rights as the owner of Loki’s head to sew his mouth shut?”

“It would,” Odin said.

I gasped, and Loki’s eyes whipped around to find mine, wide with fear. “Please leave,” he mouthed at me.

I shook my head. I would stay with him.

Eitri forced Loki to his knees, a better height for Brokk to work with. Eitri’s arm was locked around Loki’s two, pinning them behind him. Eitri grabbed a fistful of his hair and tilted his head up.

As Brokk pulled out new tools, the other gods were laughing. _Laughing._ As if this humiliation were deserved.

Idony, standing near me, noticed my distress and put an arm around me. I leaned into her friendly embrace. I cast around the room for sympathy—surely this couldn’t happen!—but there was none. The countenances I examined ranged from mild distaste to open enjoyment of the proceedings. Even noble Thor was fighting back a smile.

“First, I’ll need to bore holes,” Brokk said gleefully. “Stay still now, or this will hurt even worse.” He laid a strip of leather over Loki’s mouth and drilled into it with an awl.

Loki’s eyes were unfocused as Brokk worked, creating two neat rows of holes around his lips. Tears leaked from his eyes, mingling with the blood that dripped from his chin.

I couldn’t look away, unable to imagine what pain and degradation he must be suffering. My gut twisted, and I wanted to throw up.

Brokk threaded a needle with thick twine and sewed up the holes in Loki’s flesh. Then he packed away his tools and stood back to admire his handiwork. Eitri released Loki, who fell to his hands and knees. The dwarves joined the chorus of laughter echoing through the hall.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Braving judgment, I shrugged off Idony’s arm and ran to Loki. I felt so frighteningly small next to the burly dwarves and the gods on their thrones as I helped Loki to his feet. He didn’t resist when I whispered, “Let’s go,” and no one stopped us when I led him out of the hall.

He was like a child, leaning on my shoulder and content to let me guide him. Muzzled. Silenced.

I wanted to kick and scream that it wasn’t _fair_ , but I had to stay strong for him, unsure if he would take care of himself if I didn’t.

I took him to his room, and he slumped on the floor by his bed. “I’m just going to grab a couple of things, and then I’ll be right back,” I told him, feeling strange that I could speak and he couldn’t. I dashed into his bathroom for first aid supplies and a bowl of water, then to his study for scissors. “Okay,” I said when I returned, kneeling in front of him.

His eyes retained a glazed appearance that I hated. Reaching up, he brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. The simple action nearly broke me, and I had to breathe in and out, in and out, to steady myself.

I guided his left hand to my leg. “Okay,” I said. “I’m going to take these stitches out. Squeeze if I’m hurting you.” It was so stupid; of course I’d be hurting him! But he nodded, and I told myself it needed to be done.

Carefully, carefully, I snipped through the row of stitches, ignoring the blood soaking the cord. Should I remove the cord next or the strip of leather? I decided that, though I’d prefer the leather was gone so I could see what I was doing, I didn’t want to work it off over the ends of almost a dozen strings.

There was no easy way to go about this. Each thread looped inside his mouth, emerging through a hole in his upper and lower lip. I’d have to pull them out through two holes at once, that or open his mouth to cut them from the inside, which I didn’t have the stomach for.

I snipped the ends as close to the leather as possible on the bottom row, then one by one eased them out from the top. When the strings were all gone, I gently peeled away the leather, freeing Loki’s face.

Oh gods, oh gods, it looked awful. I fought to keep my expression neutral. “Almost done,” I said. “I just need to clean you up.” I’d brought a bowl of warm water and a rag for this purpose. Dipping the cloth in the water, I wiped the fresh and crusting blood from his face. Though he winced, the hand on my leg was still.

Finally, I smeared ointment over his wounds. The moment I finished, I spun away, unable to hold back dry, heaving sobs any longer.

He spoke for the first time, his voice cracked and empty. “You are disgusted by me.”

“I’m not disgusted with you, Loki. How could you think that?” I clutched my hair. “I’m sad that someone I, I care about has been hurt so badly.”

A few minutes later, he said, “Not that you haven’t been truly angelic, better than I deserve, but could I be alone for a while?”

My instincts told me not to leave, but I was a wreck, not fit to comfort anyone, and how could I deny him anything? I nodded, trembling, and left. As I closed the door to his rooms, I heard him howl.


	7. In Darkness

**Loki**

Two days passed, and though I wished for Sigyn to return, what could I say to her? Please touch me gently as you did before and convince me I’m not an abomination? Please fuck me, I need a distraction?

On the one occasion I made the mistake of looking in a mirror, my image was so repulsive that I flung it to the ground. The sound of the glass shattering gave me momentary satisfaction.

I was in pain, lots of it, but worse than that was the humiliation. In front of all those people, my greatest weapon, my words, had been stripped away from me, and they had relished the spectacle.

I leaned on my desk, sick of pacing. They would pay. Every creature that had gloated over my defeat would pay a hundred times over.

A knock sounded on my door, and I whipped my head toward the noise in confusion. A moment later, I recalled that it was Tyr’s-day, Sigyn’s day off which she normally spent with me. With a wave of my hand, I extinguished every light in my chambers, and then I opened the door.

Sigyn looked timid, uncertain. “Hello,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you were ready to see anyone yet, but…”

“Please, come in,” I said. Speaking hurt, but not much more than usual. She stepped into the room, and I quickly shut the door behind her before anyone else could catch a glimpse of me in this state.

“It’s rather dark in here,” she said, a question in her words.

I stuck to the shadows. “I… would spare you the sight of my face right now.”

“I’ve already seen it,” she said, stepping toward me, and I took one back to maintain our distance.

“Even so,” I said. “I’m not ready.”

“Okay.” Her voice was so tender, I ached. “Okay, Loki.” She sat on the couch in my living area, and I followed her example, maintaining a few feet between us. She didn’t face me, for which I was grateful, and struck up a casual conversation. “Can you shapeshift into a version of you without the scars?” she asked.

“I shall when they heal enough for me to do so without injuring them more.”

“If I were a shapeshifter,” she mused, “I think I’d be trying to improve my appearance all the time.”

I smiled. “When I was younger, I certainly did. But I’ve found a form I am partial to after much trial and error. You, however, have no need to alter your appearance; I can’t imagine you being more beautiful.”

“Flatterer,” she said, and it felt good to have some of our old banter back.

I reached over and took her hand, rubbing her palm with my thumb. We were silent for a time.

“You’re not alone, Loki,” Sigyn said suddenly. “You don’t have to suffer in the darkness by yourself if you don’t want to.”

And then I was taking her into my arms, burying my face in her hair, and she was hugging me back with hands that could carry worlds, or at least mine.

It felt so natural to slide my hand down and cup her backside that I hardly realized I’d done it until she began kissing my neck in response. I paused, and she immediately pulled back, sensing my distress.

“We don’t have to do this, either,” she said.

“No, I would very much like to, but,” I couldn’t look at her, “would you consider wearing a blindfold?”

Blessedly, she didn’t argue or try to persuade me it wasn’t necessary. “Of course.”

I conjured a strip of cloth and, with her encouragement, tied it around her eyes. I immediately felt more sure of myself now that she couldn’t see my ruined face. I swept her up with a hand on her back and one under her knees and carried her into the bedroom. I set her on the mattress, undressing her with slow, sensual movements.

“Loki,” she breathed, loud in the darkness. Her fingers found the ties of my shirt and eased me out of my clothing.

She was magnificent, clad in nothing but the blindfold, running her hands over my chest and back. Since I could not kiss her, I caressed every bit of skin I could reach. Her folds when I explored them were dripping wet. I slid a finger inside her, but it only made her needier.

“Please, Loki!” she gasped.

I leaned over her, removing my finger to line us up. Sliding inside her hot, wet cavity was Valhalla incarnate. Her walls gripped my cock as I pulled out and stretched as I pushed back in. “Sigyn,” was all I could say, and I hoped it was enough.

She kissed my neck again, sucking gently and swirling patterns with her tongue.

I entwined my fingers with hers and rested them above her head, still thrusting slowly. She felt so good—so, so good. If an attacker entered the room now, I would be oblivious, lost in the feeling of Sigyn under me, around me.

She moaned long and low when I picked up the pace, then let out a stream of encouragement. “Norns, yes, like that, oh Loki!”

Gods and dwarves be damned. Nothing mattered but this.

Soon I was fucking her more urgently, driving toward both our pleasures. Her hips rose to meet mine when they could, but I wasn’t giving her much room. I wanted zero space between the bed and her body and mine. I wanted to hear my name on her pretty lips again, to feel her come undone beneath me.

I squeezed her hands and increased the pace again, hearing, “I’m close.” And then she keened, head thrown back and lips parted, every line of her tense and quivering.

I followed, spilling inside her with a few sharp thrusts.

My breathing was ragged as I released her hands. Fear crept back in. Would she want to look at me now? I wasn’t ready to see revulsion color her features, not so soon.

But she slid her arms up my back and held me pressed against her, blindfold still on, sweat cooling our bodies.

“Hold on,” I mumbled, and I lifted her enough to pull the blanket out from under her and drape it over us.

We laid there for a while. Then we sat up and talked about nothing. Food arrived from the kitchens, and we ate in bed, her back against my chest. When the evening sun made shadows out of shapes, I took her again, forgetting my pain in the softness of her curves.


	8. What Are We?

**Sigyn**

I was brushing Freya’s hair, both of us sitting on a velvet divan in her chambers, when she asked me about Loki.

 _‘Who?’_ was the first reply that came to mind, but I quickly realized how idiotic that would sound. “The prince and I are…” Lovers? Sweethearts? Friends? None of those felt right. “I think he is interested in me,” I said, wary of getting her romantic expectations up, “but I’m not sure how interested.”

She squealed and spun in her seat to face me. “But he promoted you from your position as a maid to be with you! That was him, wasn’t it? Oh, it’s so romantic!”

Too late! Her expectations were up. “I think you may be making too much of it, my lady,” I said. He had done all that to be able to fuck me, nothing more, and I knew better than to expect anything more.

“But the other day,” she insisted, eyes sharp and blue as ice, “after that nasty business with the dwarves, _you_ ran out to help him. Probably bandaged him up and kissed him better.”

I wished to be anywhere else. Muspelheim would be preferable to this.

Freya turned back around, and I resumed brushing her hair. “Oh, what a story,” she continued. “The Trickster tamed by the love of a girl.”

I choked. “Neither of us has said anything about love!”

“Haven’t you seen the way he looks at you, honey? From the Goddess of Love, trust me, it’s coming.”

~

“I would like you to meet my mother,” Loki said one evening a few days later, and I nearly spat out my drink.

We were picnicking in a picturesque meadow isolated from prying eyes. The scars around Loki’s mouth had vanished, but Freya’s words had been on my mind constantly, so that I could barely enjoy his company. And now this. “The queen?” I asked, unsure if I had heard him correctly.

“No, my jotun mother,” he said sarcastically. “I thought we’d take a stroll down to Jotunheim so I could introduce you. I hear it’s lovely this time of year. Yes, Frigga.”

“But,” I struggled, “she’s the queen! And I’m just a girl.”

He realized the cause of my cognitive dissonance, and his gaze softened. “A girl involved with a prince of Asgard,” he said.

Involved. I couldn’t meet his eyes, ashamed of my desire to press him on the subject, to learn how he really felt about me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I couldn’t help myself. “What am I to you, Loki? This feels like a date, but is it? Or did you only bring me here to sleep with me again? I’m fine with that, I promise, but you need to tell me explicitly that that’s all we are because I don’t know!” I took a deep breath.

“What has brought this on?” he asked.

Miserable, I admitted, “I spoke with Freya the other day…”

“Shit,” he said, leaning back on his elbows in the grass, long legs crossed in front of him.

“I know, I know,” I said. “Forget I asked. I’m sorry.”

“No, you deserve better than this,” he sighed. “I don’t know what fairytale that meddling vixen has painted for you, but the truth is that it’s complicated. I don’t know precisely how to define our relationship because this is new to me. I am not fond of my other consorts the way I am of you.”

My throat was dry all of a sudden. “You have other consorts?” Of course he did; he was a handsome, powerful man. Of course, I wasn’t the only person he saw for a bit of fun on the side.

“None that I’ve seen since knowing you if it makes you feel any better.”

“It does, a little.”

“But I will break it off with them.” He sat up and took my hand. “I should have done it long ago. All I want is you, Sigyn. I can’t in any fairness call this love, or courtship, but I know that when I’m lonely, when I’m happy, when I’m frightened, I want you with me. Can that be enough for now?”

I kissed him long and hard, savoring the taste of him. “Yes,” I said at last. “That’s more than enough.” And I pulled him on top of me to kiss him again.

~

I was now comfortable enough to enter Loki’s rooms after knocking, without waiting for him to let me in. But this time, perhaps I should have waited because I caught him speaking into the end of a small horn while no one else was around to hear.

“I’ll just come back later,” I said upon seeing him engaged in such a ridiculous activity.

“Hang on,” he said into the horn. To me, “No, stay. I shall only be a minute.” He explained, “This device lets me speak to anyone across the nine realms in real-time, as long as they have the matching horn and we both are holding them.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “That’s incredible. Who are you talking to?”

He looked me up and down. “Are you sure you want to know?”

I answered, “Yes,” without thinking.

“My dom.” He smirked at me.

“Right,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “Forget I asked.” But I sat on the couch, curious about their conversation despite myself.

“Hello,” Loki said into the horn. “Please continue. You were screaming at me, I believe.” Several moments passed, during which I assumed the person on the other side was speaking. Or screaming. I couldn’t hear them. “No, Boda. It’s over.” A pause. “Yes, ma’am, I am certain.”

Was this “Boda” one of his other mistresses? He said he would be breaking up with them. Did I want to be around for this?

“There’s no need for that kind of language.” Another pause. Then he colored, glanced at me, and moved a little farther into the room. “You know she can’t. I will not; those days are behind me.”

He was keeping his side of the conversation minimal for my benefit, I could tell, and I wondered fiercely what the other woman was saying.

After more of this back and forth that I could hear only half of, Loki grew tense, and his words became heated. “You have as many visitation rights as I do. Or did you forget that the General ripped them from us?”

Holy crap, he had children with this woman?

“You sniveling— Fine. I’ll see you in Helheim.”

Feeling very much like I’d intruded on a private exchange, I stared at my feet.

Loki held the horn to his ear again, then shook his head. “She smashed the other one,” he said. “This is useless now.” He set the horn on a side table, then crouched at my feet and took my hands. “If Angrboda tries to contact you in any way, I want you to let me know immediately. She is not a person to be trifled with.”

“I didn’t mean for you to break up with the mother of your children,” I said, feeling odd. “Honestly, I’d forgotten you had children.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said soothingly, “and Boda’s and my relationship was never the healthiest. It needed to end.”

I wasn’t sure what else there was to say.

“How old are you, anyway?” he asked out of the blue, teasing but curious.

“A little over 300,” I replied.

He groaned and rested his head on our joined hands. “Norns, you’re a child.”

“I am not!” I said, pushing his head away. “I’ve been a grown woman for 200 years!” I resisted the urge to stamp my foot, feeling childish indeed.

“You are right,” he joked. “You are a very mature child.” He dodged my blow, grinning, but then he sobered. “You are going to have to accept that I’ve lived twice as long as you, and, and I have baggage from every single one of those years.”

Angrboda, he meant, and probably many other things besides. I tugged him to his feet and embraced him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me begging pathetically for ~c o m m e n t s~


	9. Magic

**Loki**

Sigyn was dressed up to meet my mother, attired in an airy peach gown with her hair in braids. She was nervous, biting her lip as we walked arm in arm down the hall.

“It will be fine,” I assured her. We were deep in the heart of the palace, where the walls dripped gold, and organza curtains lined every window. ‘The gaudier, the better’ seemed the philosophy behind the styling.

“What if she doesn’t approve of me?” Sigyn asked. “What if I get flustered and say something stupid?”

I said, “She will approve of you. She has excellent taste.”

That made her smile, and I wanted that smile never to leave. But it did as we approached the double doors marking the entrance to the queen’s rooms.

I kissed the back of her hand. “You don’t have to be afraid. I will be with you the whole time.”

“Okay,” she said, steeling herself.

I knocked, and a few moments later, Frigga herself opened the door.

“Come in, come in!” she said, ushering us into a grand entryway/meeting room. A cluster of comfortable chairs sat in an indentation in the ground. Glass doors on one side of the room led to a balcony overlooking a garden, and on the other stood desks covered in neatly-stacked paper and intricate instruments. Frigga dismissed an attendant, saying, “You may go, Vara, but please return after dinner so we can finish going over those reports.”

“Very good, ma’am,” Vara said. She curtsied and left through the main entrance, closing the door behind her.

Frigga took Sigyn’s hands, standing back to get a good look at her. “So this is the woman I’ve heard so much about,” she said. “You are just as lovely as he described.”

“Mother,” I warned, “don’t embarrass the poor girl.”

Sigyn found her voice. “Thank you, your majesty, and may I say what an honor it is to meet you.”

Frigga inclined her head. “Now,” she said, leading us down a few steps to the chairs, “tell me all about yourself.”

We took a seat across from her. “Well,” Sigyn said, “my parents died when I was fifteen, but the palace staff took me in, and I’ve lived here ever since.”

I didn’t know that. I had never asked Sigyn where she was from or how she came to work here.

“I’m truly sorry, my dear,” Frigga said.

“It’s all right. I love it here. Everyone has been very kind to me.”

“That is no great endorsement,” I said. “It is easy to be kind to you.”

She nudged me good-naturedly.

The conversation progressed from Sigyn’s hobbies—reading, strolling through Asgard’s many gardens—to our plans for the upcoming Haust blót festival. There would be a bonfire and storytelling, and Frigga invited Sigyn to join the royal party. She graciously accepted, and I was grateful too. Appearing in public with the queen’s blessing would go a long way toward legitimizing our relationship—whatever it was.

I would not admit it, but I had been nervous about this meeting, too. I desperately wanted my mother’s approval, as if it would convince me I wasn’t out of my mind in pursuing this woman.

And to my delight, the interaction went exceedingly well.

By the time we took our leave, Sigyn had relaxed, and my mind was wandering.

“I like her very much,” Sigyn told me on the way back to my rooms. “She is clever but compassionate. I see much of her in you.”

I would hardly describe myself as compassionate, but I didn’t argue. “I owe Frigga much,” I said. “She taught me magic, you know. I spent more time with her growing up than any other member of my family.”

She was quiet, her expression encouraging me to continue.

“When I was a child, it soon became apparent that I was not as _athletically inclined_ as my brother. But I had wits, and Frigga put them to good use, giving me seidr and thus the power I lacked. Learning magic from the Enchantress herself was a privilege, and I can never thank her enough.”

“But?” Sigyn prompted, catching the dark undercurrent in my words.

“But it should have been Odin,” I said. We reached my rooms, and I hesitated at the threshold. Now that I’d started talking, all my fears and resentments threatened to overflow. “I’ve never said this out loud to anyone,” I told her.

“You can talk to me,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on in that mind of yours.”

I made my decision, and I pulled her into my study. “Okay,” I said, scrambling for a pen and paper. I drew a symbol for her: ᛈ

“I know you already know this,” I said, my words coming fast now that I’d let them free, “but this is the rune Pertho: the dice cup.”

“Because it looks like a cup on its side,” she said.

“Precisely. It stands for chance, the unknown, the occult, fate, and femininity.”

“That’s a lot of things,” she said.

“Because they are all connected. Seidr is the magic of fortune telling—of weaving the fabric of reality and manipulating the strands of fate. And it is inherently feminine. It gives women power in our society, but at the same time, men who use it are looked down upon. With one notable, glaring exception.”

Sigyn was interested but cautious, and I knew I strayed into dangerous territory by speaking ill of the High One. “Odin,” she said.

“People are so damn scared of him that it doesn’t matter that he uses women’s magic. Or if anyone takes issue with it, they do so in whispers. Me, on the other hand, they have no trouble making fun of.”

“But if the Allfather had taught you instead of the queen…”

She understood. “I might have gained a touch more respectability.”

Sigyn sat in the room’s single chair and drew her knees up to her chin, thinking. “So they call you _argr_ , unmanly.” She glanced sheepishly at me. “I’m sorry, but you seem to be aware of it.”

“Don’t apologize. I am.”

“Well, couldn’t that have more to do with your gender fluidity than your use of seidr?”

“It could,” I replied, pleased that we could speak of this so freely. Would she never cease to astound me? “But we’ll never know if Odin could have lessened some of the social stigma surrounding my activities by explicitly endorsing them.” I laughed hollowly. “I’ve often considered just changing to a woman and being done with it. But I’ve found that it is easier to get my way as a man.”

“For the record,” Sigyn said shyly, “I think you make a hot woman.”

I kissed her for that. “Duly noted,” I said when I could finally disentangle our mouths. “Thank you for listening.”

“I want to listen,” she insisted. “I want you to feel comfortable telling me anything.”

“Okay,” I said.

I couldn’t tell her how she made my heart pound, how less and less I could imagine a life without her. How I was frightened of the ease with which I was opening up, baring myself to her in a way I never had to another. How soaking up her presence was softening me, making clichés the norm and wearing down the armor I had built to protect myself, and most of all, how I didn’t mind.


	10. Thor's Wedding

**Sigyn**

We had just finished styling Freya’s hair for the day and were preparing to play a board game when we heard voices outside the door.

“She may be dressing still. Don’t go barging in there.” It sounded like Loki.

“Right.” Deep and gruff, this voice belonged to Thor. When a thundering fist rattled the door, I assumed that was Thor as well.

Freya took one last glance in the mirror then hurried to her divan, arranging herself artfully. “Anika, please get the door.”

Anika, another lady’s maid, admitted the two princes. Loki half-bowed to Freya, but Thor rushed right up to her, forgoing protocol.

“My lady,” Thor said. “We require your magic cloak of falcon feathers. Where is it?”

Loki stepped forward, saying, “If I may. Lady Freya, Thor’s hammer has been stolen, and—”

“Yes!” interrupted Thor. “My new, magnificent hammer, Mjolnir. It’s missing!”

“My goodness,” said Freya. “But what does my cloak have to do with it?”

“I am going to investigate in Jotunheim,” Loki said. “I have a hunch that our friends the giants are behind this. Your cloak allows its wearer to turn into a falcon, so with your permission, I would like to borrow it so I can search without arousing suspicion.”

Freya looked suspicious herself. “Can’t you shapeshift?”

“Ah. As loath as I am to admit any deficit in my abilities, non-human forms are difficult to sustain for long periods, and the search may take several days.” Several days! Loki would be in dangerous lands in the shape of a bird, and we might not receive word from him for several days? I would be out of my mind with worry the whole time.

“Very well,” said Freya. “Thor’s missing hammer is indeed a dangerous mystery, so I will lend you what you need.” She lifted her precious cloak from its mannequin display. It was made of brilliant brown feathers draped like two giant wings over the shoulders. She handed it to Loki. “I want it back the moment you return.”

“Please be safe, your highness,” I said hastily, worried for him but wary of addressing him too informally in front of this company.

“For the sake of Freya’s cloak, I will do my best to return unscathed,” he said. Then he wrapped the cloak around him, feathers rustling, and a falcon flew out through the open window.

“Thank you, Lady Freya,” Thor said.

“How about a game of chess to pay me back?” she asked coquettishly, batting her lashes and tilting her head to the side. Oh, she was good. I needed to learn that trick.

Thor was helpless to resist.

~

**Loki**

Once Heimdall touched me down in Jotunheim, I flew in the direction of the nearest settlement, scanning the ground for clues.

But before I had traveled five miles, I spotted a lone figure sitting atop a hill—conspicuous, as if he wanted to be found. Even as jotuns went, he was a hideous brute, and he was sharpening a battle axe with unhurried ease. He did not look up when I landed in front of him, morphing into my god form once more.

“Thor’s hammer has been stolen,” I said. It was best if I cut to the chase. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

He grinned, showing yellowed teeth.

_Come on_ , I wanted to say. _You are just playing into stereotypes. I know plenty of jotuns with excellent personal hygiene and manners—practically indistinguishable from Aesir!_ But I kept quiet because I wanted something from him, and it was better not to insult people before bargaining.

“I took it,” he said. _Shhhhhrrrrrrrik_ went his grindstone.

“And who might you be?”

“Thrym, chieftain of the largest clan in Jotunheim!” he bragged.

So he did have the means to improve his appearance, yet he chose to present himself as a barbarian. Fascinating. “Look, why don’t we save both ourselves some time. What do you want for the hammer?”

“I have heard tales of the goddess Freya’s beauty. I want her hand in marriage.”

Shit. I was not looking forward to telling her that. “We can not just trade away our goddesses.” I tried to reason with him. “Is there something else you want? Anything at all?”

“Nope,” Thrym said, still grinning. Norns, did I look that stupid when I did that? “I want Freya. And if you don’t bring her to me to be my wife, you will never get your hammer back. It’s buried eight miles below the ground in a secret location. I will bring it up as a bride gift at the wedding.”

“Since you are determined, let me put your request to her,” I said. “It’s her decision.”

He was still grinning and sharpening his axe when I flew away.

~

**Sigyn**

Not two hours later, Loki flew back through the window. Thor was still playing chess with Freya, and I was reading nearby. All heads turned to the falcon.

Loki lifted the cloak from his shoulders, resuming the form of a man. “Well,” he announced, “I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Freya asked dryly.

“The good news is that your cloak is safe and sound.” He draped it over the mannequin. “And I discovered the whereabouts of Mjolnir.”

“Excellent!” said Thor.

“What’s the bad news, Loki?” Freya asked a little more tensely.

He scratched the back of his neck. “It was stolen by a giant chief named Thrym, and he wants your hand in marriage in return for it, Freya.”

Freya closed her eyes like she was counting in her head to calm herself. When she spoke, her voice was icy. “And just what did you tell him?”

“That I could not answer for you. I tried to offer him something else, but he wants you.”

Her eyes shot open, and Loki fidgeted under the ferocity of her glare. “If you think,” she rose, and one of her cats wove around her legs, hissing at Loki, “that I can be _exchanged_ as a ransom payment—that I would even _consider_ wedding a beast like that—then you are sorely mistaken.”

I had never seen Freya this enraged, and I remembered that she was also the Goddess of War and Bloodlust. She looked ready to rip someone’s heart out.

I had spoken up before I realized what I was doing. “Why don’t you call a council of the gods? You can all discuss it together and devise a solution.”

All heads in the room turned to me. “That is not a bad idea,” Loki said, and I thanked him internally. The attention made me nervous.

“Fine,” Freya snapped.

Every major god and goddess in Asgard at the time, Aesir and Vanir, assembled in Odin’s council chamber a few days later. I was allowed to observe from the sidelines because Freya had insisted on her lady’s maids coming with her for moral support. No one argued.

They debated until the sun touched the horizon. Everyone had an idea, and Loki pointed out a flaw in every suggestion. Thor bellowed a lot. Freya didn’t speak much, just seethed and glared whenever someone said, “Maybe we might have to give him what he wants.”

Finally, Heimdall spoke. “I have a suggestion,” he said, serene as always.

“Tell it to us,” said Thor, who was anxious to have his hammer back.

“You, Thor, dress up in a wedding gown, put a veil over your face, and go to the land of the giants pretending to be Freya. When they bring out Mjolnir, you can shed your disguise and serve justice to the thieves.”

“Absolutely not,” said Thor. “Out of the question.”

“But think of Asgard,” said Balder, one of Odin’s younger, minor sons. (Only Thor and Loki were considered princes for complicated political reasons, but Odin had several other children.) Balder was known for his even temper and kindly disposition. “Without Mjolnir in your hands, we are vulnerable to attack.”

“I shall go with you, brother, disguised as your handmaiden, to make sure it all goes smoothly,” Loki said.

“Indeed,” said Odin. “Heimdall, this is a good plan.”

“But—” protested Thor.

“It is settled,” said Odin, and Thor shut his mouth with a snap. Odin banged the butt of his staff against the floor like a judge issuing a sentence. “Goddesses, prepare Thor for his wedding.”

That was the first time I had ever seen Thor look afraid.

Frigga, Freya, and several others erupted into lively chatter and swept the horrified Thor out of the room like a wave bearing a ship. Sif trailed behind, more enjoying the sight of Thor’s discomfort than participating in the proceedings. The other lady’s maids and I followed too.

And what a spectacle it was! The God of Thunder stood in the center of Freya’s largest room, half a foot taller than anyone else, as the women whirled around him.

We took off his cape, fur vest, and shirt and quickly realized that none of our clothes would fit him. So we put him in a long-sleeved silk shirt of his own, and Idony and I sewed lace to the cuffs of it while Freya draped a long piece of creamy satin around him like a toga. An embroidered belt cinched the waist. Then we positively drenched him in jewels, hiding his fingers under dozens of rings and his neck under enough necklaces to make even the dwarves envious. Idun covered his face from the nose down with a veil, and Frigga put a headdress on him, obscuring everything but his eyes.

“I look ridiculous,” Thor said, his voice muffled.

“You look perfect,” said Loki, strolling into the room and sounding like he was enjoying himself far too much. He shrank into a dark-haired, pretty girl in the dress of a high-ranking servant. “There,” she said. “Now, we both are ready. Just let me do all the talking, and everything will be fine.”

Thor followed Loki out with all the grace of a wounded hound.

“I hope this works,” said Frigga.


	11. The Harvest Festival

**Loki**

When we returned to Asgard, Mjolnir in hand, Thor insisted that I tell no one what had transpired. “It’s too embarrassing,” he said. “I’d rather we just forget this whole thing ever happened.”

“Why?” I asked, in a good mood after the satisfactory conclusion of a cunning plot. “I thought you made a lovely bride.”

I only just dodged his fist.

The Haust blót celebration was tomorrow, so I went to bed immediately, knowing that I would be up late again the next night.

The festival celebrated the autumn equinox and the start of the harvest season—one last hoorah before the chill of winter set in. There would be parties throughout Asgard, but the gaudiest and most exclusive of them all was for the gods, goddesses, and other nobles.

That evening, the royal family processed from the palace to the open field set up for the party. Odin led, with Frigga on his arm. Then came Thor with his date for the night, the Lady Sif, looking both pretty and terrifying in a simple white dress under a wide leather belt and vambraces, a jeweled dagger on her hip. And to finish, me with Sigyn. The way every expression shone on her face was endearing. She stood out amongst our party for her lack of political training. Of all our smiles, hers was the most genuine.

The timber was placed for an enormous bonfire not yet lit. Near tables laden with food, whole pigs roasted on spits, fat dripping and sizzling into fires. Thick blankets made seats out of the grass, and dozens of people were already gathered, lounging or competing in games for silly prizes. They paused at our arrival, and those who were sitting stood.

We made our way to the blanket reserved for us, which was the size of a small room and positioned with a perfect view of the proceedings. We turned and faced the crowd.

Odin gave a speech. Blah blah preparing for winter blah blah celebrate our endurance. I had heard it a thousand times before. When at last he finished, he took a torch and, with solemn ceremony, lit the bonfire.

The crowd cheered, probably because they were now allowed to partake of the bountiful feast laid out for them.

Thor joined the mad rush for the food tables. Sigyn and I waited for the crowds to disperse before filling our plates and returning to the royal party’s blanket.

And she was so lovely in the fading light that I could hardly look away. The last rays of sunlight caught the gold in her caramel skin and chocolate hair. Doe's eyes took in the spectacle around her with delight. She said, “I’ve never been to a party like this before.”

“Let us hope you shall see many more of equal and greater magnificence,” I said.

Then the Warriors Three—Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg—ran up to us, bowing quickly to the king and queen, then addressing Thor and Sif.

“The tug-of-war is starting!” cried Volstagg.

Thor and Sif leaped to their feet, already taking off with their companions. “Come, Fandral,” said Thor. “We won’t let them win this time!”

“What will this be, the fifth year in a row?” taunted Sif.

Sigyn chuckled beside me. I never wanted that smile to leave her face. While we finished dinner at a more civilized pace, my parents, Sigyn, and I chatted. She was still reserved and polite, but I thought she might be more at ease with them than before, which was a good sign.

It was then that I caught sight of a trio of women whispering and casting nasty looks at Sigyn. It had to happen sooner or later. With increased attention from the royal family came curiosity from those less favored—and often jealousy. I hoped there would be no unpleasantness. But Sigyn could handle it, couldn’t she?

Next came storytelling, as night fell in earnest and young and old gathered around the bonfire. Whoever wished to entertain could speak.

“Who will go first?” asked Volstagg, loud and flushed from all the ale he’d consumed. “Thor, we never heard how you got Mjolnir back!”

There was a general cry of consensus throughout the congregation. “Tell us what happened!” someone entreated.

Thor shook his head. “What is there to tell?” He clearly did not wish to speak.

But the pleas became more insistent, then transferred to me, since I had gone with him to the land of the jotuns. I had rather hoped this would happen. Thor may have asked me not to speak of the incident, but how could I resist? “Very well,” I conceded, standing, and the crowd cheered—a good audience, slightly drunk and eager to be entertained.

I waited for their voices to die down before I began. “The giant Thrym would return Mjolnir for nothing but Lady Freya’s hand. So,” I said suggestively, “that’s what we gave him.” Laughter. “Thor covered head to foot in wedding clothes, and I, disguised as her handmaiden, arrived at Thrym’s castle, which was carved into the side of a mountain. Servants met us at the door and led us to a dining hall where a fabulous feast was arrayed.”

“Was it as good as this one?” interrupted an audience member.

“I won’t insult our chefs by deigning to answer that,” I replied, and more laughter resulted. “However, Thor must have thought it looked delicious, for no sooner had they set a tray of delicate pastries in front of us than he swept the whole lot into his mouth. The other ladies gave us dirty looks, so I nudged my brother,” I mimed this, taking on an expression of nervous caution, “and whispered, ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t eat so much at once.’ To which he responded, ‘But it would be a shame to let all this food go to waste,’ and shoveled a whole salmon onto his plate.”

“Here here!” someone cheered.

Thor sat with his arms crossed, glaring at me lest I embarrass him.

“He ate an entire ox,” I continued, “eight large salmon, and most of the pastries and delicacies intended for the women. Not to mention, he was drinking cask after cask of mead. Thrym tapped me on the shoulder (I was sitting between him and the bride).” I did my best Thrym impression, endeavoring to sound gruff and stupid. “He said, ‘Excuse me, but the Lady Freya, most beautiful of all the goddesses, is eating more than I have ever seen a woman eat.’ But I said, ‘Worry not, Lord Thrym. It’s only because my lady has not eaten in a week. She has been so anxious to meet you that she has refused all food and drink.’

“Thrym said, ‘Oh. Well then,’ and looked very pleased with himself. ‘I have been anxious to meet her, as well. And now, I can not wait to kiss her.’ Before I could stop him, he leaned across the table and reached for Thor’s veil,” I paused for dramatic effect, “but suddenly, he sat back down. Then he tapped me on the shoulder again, whispering, ‘Pardon me, but the Lady Freya of the Golden Tears has eyes that burn like wildfire.’ ”

“I was warning him to keep his hands to himself,” interjected Thor, who was now leaning back and glaring less.

“ ‘Well, you see,’ I told Thrym, ‘Freya has been so overcome by passion for you that she has not slept this last week either.’ ”

The crowd roared. They were eating this up.

“Thrym said, ‘Oh, ho.’ He licked his lips. ‘I believe it’s time for the wedding. Bring out the bride gift!’ Six giants carried Mjolnir to us on a stretcher, and they laid it in Thor’s lap.

“You can imagine what happened next. Suffice to say, it ended with Thor standing in a pile of jotun bodies, including his would-be-husband.”

Thor snorted, I bowed, and the crowd cheered. I returned to Sigyn, glowing from my audience’s admiration. There was nothing like being the center of attention.

Several more people recounted tales—some heroic, some funny, and most both. Finally, Odin rose, and the mood became hushed. The fire’s crackle was loud as we waited for the Storyteller himself to speak.

“Once, the world was a void of nothingness: Ginnungagap. The Gap lay between the lands of fire and ice, and when these two primordial forces met…”

It was just the creation myth, again. Did the Old Man ever come up with anything new? I leaned over and whispered in Sigyn’s ear, “We’ve both heard this before. Come with me. I have something for you.”

She nodded, and the two of us slipped away into the trees. My mother watched us leave.

When we were far enough that Odin’s voice gave way to the sounds of the forest, I leaned against a trunk.

She stood expectantly with her hands behind her back. “Well?”

“Well what?” I asked.

“You said you had something for me.”

“Did I?” I was enjoying myself far too much.

“Loki!”

I smirked. “You have to find it.”

Bashfully, looking positively adorable, Sigyn patted down my jacket. “I can’t find it.”

“Check your dress’s bosom.”

She gasped and peered between her breasts, touching them experimentally. “You wouldn’t… wait. There’s nothing there.”

“No, but I enjoyed that.”

Shocked, but laughing despite herself, she shoved me. “You wicked man!”

I couldn’t stop grinning. “Maybe this will make up for it.” I held up a necklace: a sapphire dangling from a silver chain. The gem was shaped like a teardrop cut in half from top to bottom, and it glinted a vibrant blue.

“Oh, Loki,” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Allow me?” I undid the clasp, and she turned so I could fasten it around her neck.

She faced me again. “Thank you.”

A bit uncomfortable by her sincere gratitude, I shrugged it off. Usually when I did nice things for people, they peered at me and asked for the catch. “I always liked jewels as gifts for women,” I said. “They’re assets they can grab in a hurry and leave with.”

She looked puzzled and annoyed. “What the hel am I supposed to say to that?”

“Never mind. Why don’t you grab some dessert before it all disappears down ‘Lady Freya’s’ throat?”

She rolled her eyes. “I will. This was a lovely night, Loki. Thank you for all of it.”

I shooed her away and relaxed against the tree. It _had_ been a marvelous evening. Bringing Sigyn along had been a splendid idea, and I congratulated myself.

Wandering back toward the central clearing, I suddenly heard a shriek, and I sprinted the rest of the way. There was Sigyn in a knot of stupefied people, and the hem of her dress was on fire.

“Stand back!” bellowed Thor, and he tossed a bucket of water on her, putting out the fire but drenching her in the process.

I shoved my way through the crowd. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said, water and misery dripping from her. Her dress clung to her form, and I had a mind to kill every person standing around with their mouths open. Where had they been when she needed them? “I-I was standing near the fire but not _that_ near!”

So someone had done this deliberately. Someone who wanted her publicly humiliated, possibly harmed.

Frigga appeared with a heavy shawl and wrapped the poor girl in it. “There now. It’s all right. Sif is going to take you home and get you cleaned up.” Sif was gentle as she guided Sigyn away. I made to follow them, but my mother laid a hand on my chest. “I would like a word with you,” she said quietly.

We retreated a little way into the woods. “Did you see who did this?” I asked.

“No,” Frigga answered. “But Sigyn will be fine; she’s just shaken.”

“I should have been there. I should have protected her.”

Frigga’s words, when they came, were measured and slow. “Until seeing you two together tonight, I had not realized how serious the affection between you was.”

My head shot up. “But you don’t disapprove?”

Hesitation. “It is clear that she is good for you.”

My shoulders fell as I relaxed.

“But are you good for her?”

_Tears as Sigyn laid out the power difference between us. Her promotion so I could sleep with her. My unfortunate track record with relationships. The expensive necklace. That expression of terror and confusion as she stood sopping wet under the stares of Asgard’s nobility._

“Be careful, my son,” Frigga said. Patting my cheek once, she left.

I remained there, clenching my fists in silent fury.


	12. Communication Problems

**Sigyn**

Lady Sif was kinder than I’d expected from her gruff reputation. I told her where my room was, near Freya’s, and she took me there, glaring at anyone who ogled me as we passed until they went back to their own business.

I was still in shock. In the busy, close-quarters of the party, anyone could have lit my skirt on fire then disappeared into the crowd. But why would someone do such a thing? I had done no harm as far as I knew.

I had a tiny metal tub for private bathing, and Sif filled this with water. “A nice warm soak will do you good,” she said.

I disrobed, storing Loki’s necklace in a drawer, and slipped into the tub.

Sif held up the remains of my dress. “The bodice of this might be salvaged, but I confess I know little about such things.”

“Just hang it over a chair,” I told her. “I’ll have my friend look at it later.” Idony was a talented seamstress; perhaps she could save the dress.

Sif did, and then she sat on my bed, keeping me company.

I was grateful for her presence—both feminine and safeguarding. But I wished Loki were there. Why hadn’t he followed us?

I finished the bath, dressed in new clothes, and finally, Loki arrived. Sif excused herself, and I thanked her.

“How are you?” Loki asked.

“Fine, I think. Just shaken.” I sat on the edge of the bed, as Sif had.

“Good.” There was an awkward pause. Loki was nervous, both his eyes and his hands shifting about, unable to be still. “Sigyn,” he eventually said, “there’s something I must tell you. After much contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that I love you.”

A love declaration was so incongruous with the circumstances that it took me a moment to process. Then warmth flooded my body, and I beamed.

But Loki held up a hand, his brow furrowed. There was more. “I love you, meaning I want what is best for you. And I have also concluded that what is best for you does not involve me.”

My smile dropped, and the warmth began to burn. How could he say such things?

“This incident is the final proof. Being with me will bring you only pain. Since I would never wish pain upon you, I am taking it upon myself to leave.”

“So you love me, but you’re leaving me?” I cried.

“Yes.”

My throat swelling, I struggled to find the words to make him stay. “But I don’t care if people set my dress on fire. I want you!”

“Therein lies the problem,” he said. “You would remain with me despite the danger.”

“This is just one incident!” I protested.

He grew angry. “You think there won’t be more?” he shouted. He grabbed fistfuls of his hair, and his shoulders curled. “You have no idea what it’s like, knowing I failed to protect you. Knowing I’m the reason you were attacked.”

I stood, intending to comfort him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

But he backtracked, feeling for the door handle behind him. “I am sorry. This is goodbye, Sigyn.”

“Loki, wait!” I ran forward, but he was faster, out the door before I could stop him. “No. Loki!” I wrenched open the door and darted into the hall, but he was gone.

I shut myself inside my room, collapsed on the bed, and sobbed.

~

A week. For seven whole days, Loki avoided me. When we were together in public, he studiously evaded my gaze, and every time I approached him, he vanished.

My heartbreak transformed into frustration. If he would just talk to me! Only Loki could equate “I love you” with “goodbye” and have it make sense in his mind. For such a brilliant man, he was so stupid.

Freya noticed my distress and tried to cheer me up. “How about the five of us go shopping today? We’ll get you something stunning to wear for the ball tomorrow, and Loki will see what he’s missing and beg you to take him back.”

That sounded like just what I needed, and I told her so.

I was fortunate to be lady’s maid to Freya; she was generous with and possessive of the women she considered her friends, and the four of us fell in that category. She took us to Asgard’s premier fashion district and bid me to try on enough clothes that I nearly forgot about Loki.

When a crimson gown with a built-in cape caught my eye, Freya ordered me to buy it. “Just charge it to the palace,” she said.

I didn’t protest. The gown was lovely, and I wanted Loki to see it.

But though he stared at me all through the first half-hour of the ball, he still would not let me near him to talk. I decided to try another tactic.

“Thor,” I said, pulling him aside, “I need your help…”

The prince agreed to my plan. We would pretend to flirt the rest of the night to make Loki jealous. Hopefully, he would get angry enough to confront me, and we could finally talk about what had happened.

Thor was not who I really wanted, but he was cheerful, pleasant company. We danced several songs together. I accompanied him while he chatted with his friends, laughing at his stories and occasionally touching his arm.

I knew Loki watched. His eyes were fixed on our movements from the side of the room. I pretended not to notice him. I had given him plenty of chances, and Thor was attentive and handsome. Honestly, I was having a good time.

Now, Thor and I stood talking alone, my back against a pillar. “Odd,” he said conspiratorially. “I thought for sure he would have dragged you out of this party by now. Let’s turn up the heat a little, shall we?”

I bit my lip and batted my lashes, trying to mimic Freya. “What do you have in mind?”

He leaned closer. “How about a kiss? Just a small one, I promise.”

Why not? “Absolutely,” I said.

But no sooner had he bent down than Loki wrenched me to the side. “Enough,” he snapped, his grip on my arm like iron. “You’re coming with me.”

As he hauled me away, I waved goodbye to Thor, who was trying not to burst into laughter.

Loki slammed me into the wall of his room. “Just what,” he said through gritted teeth, “do you think you were doing?”

I couldn’t help being spiteful. “Well, since you broke up with me, I thought I was free to see anyone I pleased.”

“You and I both know that you don’t care one bit for Thor. You are doing this to get back at me.”

“You have a mighty high opinion of yourself,” I taunted. “Maybe I am sick of your obstinate refusal to talk to me. And who wouldn’t enjoy Thor’s attention? He’s tall, attractive, muscular…”

“Shut up, Sigyn,” he snarled.

“Why are you mad? If you want me, just say so. If not, then let me go.” I tried to jerk out of his grasp, but he held firm.

“If you are going to run back to the party, I will not.” The bastard knew he was unreasonable.

“You don’t want me to date you, but you don’t want me to date anyone else either, is that it?” I asked, pressing him until he admitted he was wrong. “Are you afraid I’ll like being with Thor so much I’ll forget about you?”

“Sigyn,” he warned, pushing in close until I could feel his breath on the end of my nose.

“Oh, I’m sure he’d be an incredible lover,” I sighed dreamily. “I wish I could feel his mouth on my neck, his cock inside me…”

Shit. I’d gone too far.

In an instant, before I could comprehend what was happening, Loki was tossing me on the bed, and both of us were naked. I was both scared and aroused.

“Clever girl,” he said, a wicked gleam in his eye. “You knew exactly what you were doing.” He yanked me by the legs to the edge of the bed.

Did he want me back, or did he just want to angry fuck me? I thought it was the former, but to be sure… “You shouldn’t have left.”

“You’re right,” he admitted, bringing my hands above my head one at a time. “In the past week, I’ve thought of nothing but you. I was a fool to think I could live without you. But you were a fool to test me.” He pinned my hands down with one of his own and grabbed my hip, thrusting inside me with a sharp, aggressive motion.

I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t been completely ready, and Loki stretched me with pleasurable pain.

“You think Thor could fuck you like this?” he asked, voice dripping with scorn, as he pulled out and plunged into me again, powerful and controlled.

My body ached for him to cease this torture and take me without reservation. When he thrust once more, way too slow, I squirmed and whined, “Loki.”

He ignored my plea. “Do you know how crazy it made me, seeing him touching you?” Thrust. “I’m going to make you forget every time he laid his unworthy hands on your body.” Thrust. “I’m going to fuck you until the only word you know is my name.” Thrust.

“Do it then,” I taunted, sick of his careful restraint.

He growled and pulled out, flipping me so that I leaned over the bed in front of him. Finally, _finally_ , he began fucking me harshly, hips slapping into mine with bruising force.

This was what I had wanted. This passion, this raw desire pumping through our veins.

For a moment, the only sounds in the room were our ragged breathing and skin slapping skin, and I wondered if the rest of our interaction would be in silence. But no, Loki grabbed a tight fist of my hair close to the scalp and leaned over to speak in my ear. “Do you like this?” he asked. “Did you miss this?”

I was sweating, my brain fuzzy. Some small part of it that still worked told me that maybe I should have played harder-to-get, not let him back so quickly; but mostly, Loki felt so good that the minority was squashed.

“I did,” he continued. “I thought about you at night, thought about going to you on my knees and begging for you back with my tongue between your thighs.”

I whimpered.

“Fuck, Sigyn, words can’t describe how good you feel.” His hands slid down my sides, deliberately leaking magic into me—electricity, liquid heat pooling in my stomach. The sound that escaped my mouth was inhuman.

The edge of the mattress chafed against my hips, but I didn’t care. If he stopped pounding me, I would die.

He put one arm around my stomach, pulling my body back to meet his with each thrust.

“Fuck,” I said, grabbing a fistful of sheet to steady myself. This was the deepest he’d ever been. But then he was pulling out, leaving me woefully empty. “No, no, no!” I moaned.

“On your hands and knees,” Loki ordered.

I scurried to obey, putting my face in the pillows and presenting my ass to him. I didn’t care how needy I looked; all I cared about was getting his cock back inside me.

Loki took his sweet time positioning himself behind me, thrusting along the top of my ass. Why did he torture me so? I thought he loved me! Then he dragged his tip along my slit. “Beg for it,” he rasped. “Tell me you crave me.”

“Please, please, Loki,” I said, screwing my eyes shut. “Please, I need your cock!”

And he obliged, fucking me with renewed vigor. His grip on my thighs provided leverage to pound into me harder, faster. The sounds he made were lewd and lovely.

“Loki,” I groaned. “Oh, yes.” The sensations flooding me threatened to spiral out of control. The center of the nine worlds was the spot where our bodies met, and I cared for nothing but more friction.

It was instinctual, primal—unrestrained lust driving us toward the brink. Loki was dominant as he took, and I was pliant as I gave. I knew all other men had been ruined for me because nothing could ever compare to this.

Loki panted, and a drop of sweat fell on my exposed back. “Tell me you’re close,” he said.

“Yes!” _Yes yes yes yes yes._

“Say my name again.”

“Loki!” I moaned. “Fuck, Lo- Oh!” And then I was soaring on waves of orgasmic bliss, screaming into a pillow.

“Shit, I’m coming.” His hips jolted hard one, two, three times. “Fuck.” He held that last, strained pose, leg trembling.

I whimpered when he finally pulled out of me. I could already tell how sore I would be tomorrow, and I loved it. Rolling over, I noticed the hesitant expression on Loki’s face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“More than,” I said, pulling him on top of me and hugging him tightly. “That was incredible.”

He relaxed.

“But if you ever refuse to talk to me like that again, I swear I’ll slap you so hard you see Valkyries.”

A deep, rumbling chuckle. “Agreed. But you must promise me one thing, as well.”

“What?”

His grip tightened. “ _Never_ flirt with my brother again.”


	13. Brotherly Competition

**Loki**

When Odin summoned Thor and me before his council, I had no idea what to expect. Odin was so devious, I’d learned that feeling one step ahead of him meant I was probably two steps behind.

Thor, at least, was at ease. The day after the party, he had approached me and apologized for his supposed pursuit of Sigyn, confessing that it had all been her idea. I forgave him but warned him never to attempt such a thing again.

“So, are you two back together?” he asked.

“Indeed.”

He grinned. “I’m glad to hear it. I like her.”

Odin waited for us, surrounded by all his council members. “Welcome, my sons,” he said as we entered and bowed. “I have called you here to make an important announcement. After much deliberation, I have decided to officially proclaim an heir.”

The councilors murmured amongst themselves, and some of them gasped.

Odin pounded his staff for silence. He only needed to pound once. “As you all know, if I had died up until now, the throne would have gone to Frigga, who then could have passed the crown to whomever she chose. But a month from today, I will proclaim my successor as one of my two sons: Thor or Loki.”

My mind whirled. A month he was giving us to prove ourselves. Why the dramatics? Why not just make Thor the heir now? He was the first son, the most conspicuously kingly.

To give me a chance, I realized. Hope soared in my chest.

“That son will not become king immediately, only upon the event of my death or resignation,” Odin said.

Still, it was a step toward kingship, and I latched onto it like a burr.

Without coordinating, both Thor and I knelt and struck our chests with a fist, saluting Odin. Then we rose and exchanged cautious, curious glances. Thor looked eager, and I tried to convey an aura of collectedness.

“Do either of you have anything to say?” asked Odin.

Thor clutched Mjolnir, hanging from his belt, and leaned forward. “I won’t let you down, Father,” he said. “I will prove that I am worthy to rule Asgard.”

“Loki?” Odin asked.

I waited until I was sure I held everyone’s attention, then waited a beat longer just because I could. “Let the games begin,” I said.

~

I drew a small Ansuz (ᚨ) on a particular brick outside Odin’s council chamber with a charcoal pencil that could be easily wiped away. Ansuz was Odin’s rune, and one of its meanings was communication.  _ We need to talk _ .

We met at midnight, as fit both our romantic sensibilities, in the usual spot: a secluded corner of Freya’s garden, near a small waterfall that hid conversations from the casual listener. For the more determined listener, I erected wards of magic.

A wizened old gardener arrived, and then the glamor slid away to reveal Odin. “So,” he said after testing my wards. “Why am I here?”

“I have questions,” I said. “Are you going to give Thor and me a fair shot at the heirship, or have you already decided whose it is?”

“Would your behavior change if you knew one way or the other?”

I considered. “If I knew it was rigged, I’d have to pretend it wasn’t, so no.”

He shrugged.  _ There, then. _

“Would you really put Thor on the throne? Thor?” I allowed a touch of desperation to color my voice. “I love my brother, but he is reckless. We would be at war in two weeks, destroying the peace you worked so hard to achieve.” Even when you knew you were being flattered, flattery still worked sometimes.

“And you would make a better ruler?” Odin asked sardonically.

“You know I would. Thor seeks glory. On the other hand, I seek to perpetuate my own self-interest, and that interest involves a flourishing Asgard.”

“We both operate for our own benefit, but the difference between us, my son, is that you lack the willingness to put yourself through pain to achieve your goals. This is an essential trait in a leader.”

I leaned against the wall, tossing a small rock and catching it. “Ah, my aversion to pain. Some would call that a self-preservation instinct, perfectly natural.”

“For nine days, I hung myself as—”

“As a sacrifice to yourself,” I finished, rolling my eyes. “Yes, you’ve told that one many times before, quite eloquently. Barring such ludicrous publicity stunts, what can I do to prove myself?”

He fumed. Perhaps I could have been slightly less scalding in my criticism, especially since I wanted him to make me his heir.

“Look,” I said, “it comes down to this. Thor is strong, and I’m clever. Which trait do you value more?” And since I knew the answer, he should too.

“If you’re as clever as they all say,” he countered, “why aren’t you king yet?”

That took me back. I caught the rock I’d been tossing and held it, letting him see my hesitation. Did he  _ want _ me to usurp him? “You could save us both a lot of trouble by just giving me the throne.”

He shook his head, his expression hard. “Until you can take it and convince the worlds you took it fairly, you don’t deserve it.”

He left me alone to ponder this strange proclamation. Was it the approval of crafty plots by the craftiest plotter of all? Odin had done a fair share of scheming to get where he was today. Was I supposed to follow in his footsteps? If so, why the business with Thor’s and my competition?

Or was it a warning: don’t expect to win unless you can win beyond a shadow of a doubt? Thor was the favorite for Odin’s heir in everyone’s minds. If I wanted the title, I needed to prove I was more worthy than the golden boy who wielded Mjolnir, a feat that looked nigh on impossible.

At least I had a month to do it. I threw my rock into the waterfall.


	14. Queens and Promises

**Sigyn**

“Just think,” Idony said, leaning forward with a gleam in her eye, “if Prince Loki becomes heir to the throne, you could be queen someday!”

We were in Freya’s rooms, bathed in golden noonday light. Freya was weaving a tapestry and pretending not to be interested in Idony’s and my conversation.

Odin had made the announcement this morning, and by lunch, the whole palace knew that the royal brothers were in a race to be named heir. Before, we had all suspected that Frigga would soon yield the crown to Thor if and when Odin passed on. But now…

Loki was in the running. My Loki, who thought of himself as second best, who everyone had overlooked.

Idony was still awaiting my response.

“Hold on,” I said. “You forget that much has to happen before that’s possible. Firstly, Loki has to prevail over Thor, and then Odin must vacate the position. Finally, Loki hasn’t asked me to marry him, nor is he likely to. Courting a lady’s maid when he’ll be a prince all his life is one thing, but doing so when next in line for the throne is another matter entirely.” I couldn’t help glancing nervously at Freya, and I spoke a little louder for her benefit. “Trust me, the moment Odin proclaims him heir, Prince Loki will drop me and search for his wife among noble families.”

I said what I thought would put Lady Freya’s mind at ease, and I hoped my words would circulate through the palace. I did not want to be known as a gold-digging whore. Wow, I was thinking like a plotter; too much time spent with Loki.

“But isn’t just the possibility exciting?” Idony asked.

“Sigyn knows better than to consider it,” Freya said, abandoning her pretense of not paying attention. “Whoever the king names his successor will have to choose a wife with that in mind.” She sighed forlornly. “It is the curse of royalty that one’s choices are not one’s own.”

So Freya didn’t think I would make a proper queen either. I was a bit put out by this, and a bit relieved to be proven right. I had not been raised for politics. As much as I loved Loki, his world of scheming and fame and eyes on your every move scared me.

But the tiny sliver of possibility, wasn’t that a little exciting? I forced myself to genuinely consider the idea the next evening, dragging my feet toward Loki’s rooms. I wanted to make up my mind how I felt about it before seeing him.

If Loki were chosen, if he did marry me, and if Odin died, could I enjoy being a queen at Loki’s side? I would have the power to make a real difference, to right wrongs… That is, if he let me make decisions, and if I trusted myself enough to.

Ifs upon ifs upon ifs.

I hadn’t decided yet, but Loki opened his door and saw me, and a grin split his face. “Sigyn!” he said and pulled me inside.

“Hello,” I said shyly. “I wasn’t sure you’d still want to see me.”

“Not want to see you?” he asked, spinning me. “My darling, whatever gave you that ridiculous notion?” He tugged me against his chest like we were dancing.

“You’re in a good mood,” I observed, not answering his question.

“I am. For the first time in millennia, I have a chance at the throne. It is by no means certain; in fact, it’s highly unlikely,” he squeezed me with joy. “But it’s a real chance.” His expression was manic, intense. “I’m going to kiss you,” he growled, backing me into the wall.

And I let him, because that joy was contagious, and I was admittedly turned on.

His movements were powerful and confident as he kissed me senseless. He mouthed my neck, hot and needy, as he cupped my sex over my dress.

I moaned, feeling him harden against my thigh. I knew what he wanted, and my will to resist was dissipating.

“Kneel,” he commanded with the authority of a king already, and I obeyed. “Fuck, Sigyn,” when I had his pants around his ankles and I was sucking his balls into my mouth. He steadied himself with one hand on the wall and threaded the other through my hair.

I swirled my tongue around his tip. Then I slid down as far as I could until I gagged and held that position. Loki’s face was screwed up in pleasure, tiny sounds coming from the back of his throat, and I felt powerful. I was doing this to him.

I bobbed up and down his dick, using my hand on what I couldn’t fit in my mouth. He was long and thick, stretching my jaw and tasting of precum.

“You should be a goddess, did you know that?” he asked, then he sucked in a breath as my tongue swiped over a certain spot on the underside of his cock. His hand in my hair just rested there, not guiding.

“Mm hmm,” I tried to respond. His hips jolted into my mouth, and my nose touched the thatch of dark curls at his base.

He cursed.

He was beautiful like this, every long line of him tense with desire. He was mine. At least for now, he was mine, and I would savor this moment in case it never came again—the feeling of him thick and heavy in my mouth, the sound of his ragged breathing.

I sucked harder, intent on bringing him to his climax, but he eased out of my mouth before long and pulled me to a standing position. Had I done something wrong? No, he was pushing up my skirts, pulling off my panties, and hooking my leg around his waist.

When he sank inside me, we moaned in unison. “You’re so tight,” he said, beginning to fuck me. “Fire and ice, you feel good.” Then he grabbed my other thigh and told me, “Jump,” and my legs wrapped around him.

I was at his mercy, pinned between his body and the wall, fully supported by his grip on my thighs. “Loki,” I moaned desperately into his throat. “I love you. I never told you, but I love you.”

He fucked me harder. “I’m going to make you queen,” he promised. “I’m going to make you queen, and drape you in silks, and seat you on a golden throne, and everyone will bow to you.”

_ I don’t want to be queen _ , I thought,  _ I just want you. _ But I couldn’t tell him that. So I squeezed him tighter and sucked a mark on his neck. He could vanish it tomorrow if he chose, but for now, it claimed him as mine, mine, mine!

I came with a cry, my orgasm overtaking me without warning, rivers of heat flowing from my core to the tips of my fingers. No! I clutched his back. I didn’t want it to be over! I needed to stretch this moment, to keep him in my arms as long as possible.

Loki grunted and thrust more urgently, the planes of his chest as solid as the wall behind me. Finally, his hips pressed against mine and stayed there as he spilled inside me. Then he sagged.

I didn’t notice the water on my cheeks until it touched Loki’s neck. His head pulled back in shock. “You’re crying,” he said.

I wiped at the tears. Why did I cry so easily?

“Sigyn,” he pleaded. “My love, what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I don’t, I don’t want you to leave. You’re going to become Odin’s heir and decide you need a more suitable girl, and you’re going to leave.”

“Hey,” he said gently. He set me on the ground and bent to my level, cupping my face. “That won’t happen. I don’t know what Odin will decide, but I know for certain that, heir or not, I won’t stop loving you.”

I gave him a watery smile.

“You might grow sick of me eventually,” he joked, “but I’m not going to leave just because my title changes from ‘prince’ to ‘crown prince.’ That, I can promise.”


	15. Monsters

**Sigyn**

“How did you meet Angrboda, anyway?” I asked Loki one day. We were on his couch. He was reading, his legs stretched out on the table in front of him, with my legs draped across his. I fiddled with a piece of embroidery.

He looked up from his book, one elegant eyebrow raised, and seemed to weigh his words. “I met her in a jotun sex club,” he said.

My hand slipped, and I stabbed my thumb. “Oh.” I tried to appear nonchalant. “That sounds interesting.”

Loki dropped his book to his lap and leaned back. “Really? It sounds interesting?” He was laughing at me.

I didn’t appreciate being treated like a stupid little girl. “Yes,” I said. Then, before I could think about it, “Could you take me?”

He hadn’t expected that. “It’s, it’s not really your scene.”

“But it’s your scene. And I want to know all sides of you. I love all of you.”

He rubbed his chin, trying not to smile. “This is a terrible, terrible idea. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I said, going back to my embroidery. “But I like terrible ideas. I’m dating you, aren’t I?”

~

“This is it?” I asked as we approached. Music leaked out the cave entrance that sent shivers down my skin. I looked over at him and was startled. He had horns—not the curved, golden horns of his helmet, but short, twisty goat’s horns. His ears tapered to points, and silver earrings decorated them in rows. He looked like a demon.

“Just fitting in,” he said, sly and amused.

I was suddenly ashamed of my normal appearance. “Do I need to fit in?” I asked. Not that I could grow horns on demand.

“Oh no, my dear,” he grinned, “you are going to stand out.” Suddenly serious, he took my hand and halted. “You don’t have to do this, Sigyn. You don’t have anything to prove to me.”

I loved that he was giving me an out, but I was determined. “Thank you, but I’m actually curious. If I feel uncomfortable, we can just leave.”

He squeezed my hand and ushered me into the cave.

The room was large and sprawling, furnished with all manner of couches, lounges, and cushions. Torches on the walls provided flickering light and burned incense, mingling with the smells of sweat and sex.

And the people. Loki with his horns looked downright ordinary compared to some of them. At a glance, I saw women with wings and nails like talons, a man covered in glossy fur, and an androgynous being with a cat’s ears and tail sucking a man off. Two large, gray wolves fucked in a corner.

“What is this place?” I whispered.

“This,” Loki said, “is the playground of the monsters parents tell their children about at night.”

A woman slithered toward us. I blinked, realizing that she was walking normally and unsure why my brain had processed her movement as slithering. “Loki!” she greeted. “You’ve returned to uss!”

“Sindri,” he said fondly. “May I introduce my girlfriend, Sigyn?”

Sindri’s eyes turned on me, and I saw her pupils were slitted like a snake’s. Her smile faded to shock, and she recoiled. “Aesir!”

Heads around the room whipped toward us, toward me, eyes burning with hatred. Oh no.

“It’s all right,” Loki assured them, purposefully calm. “She’s not like them.” He chuckled. “She’s dating me, after all.”

“How do we know thiss isn’t Thor in disguise,” Sindri hissed, “come to slaughter uss all ass soon ass we let our guardss down?”

A bald, tattooed woman with white eyes approached. “Give me your hands,” she ordered.

I glanced at Loki, who nodded, then I let her take my hands in her own. She held them for a tense minute, looking at something I couldn’t see, then released them. “She is who she claims to be.”

The tension in the room abated, and the white-eyed woman retreated.

Sindri cocked her head, appraising me with new interest. “No Aesir hass ever come to thiss place. What are you doing here, little flower?”

I swallowed, unsure of what to say.

“Taste her,” Loki growled. “She’s sweet.” He guided me to a lounge, sitting behind me and opening my legs. One arm held tight around my middle, and the other slowly pulled my skirt up.

Sindri knelt in front of me. A forked tongue darted out to wet her lips.

This was it. I couldn’t believe I was really here, doing this, but Loki was a solid, comforting presence behind me, and my arousal was greater than my fright.

I wasn’t wearing anything under the dress, so Sindri dove right in, licking and sucking my sex.

I moaned, arching back into Loki, who breathed words of encouragement into my ear. Her mouth was incredible, hot and skilled, her tongue flicking and swirling around my most sensitive areas and driving me insane. Loki cupped my breast, kneading, but otherwise he was still, letting Sindri do all the work of pleasuring me.

Glancing around at the other copulating groups, I accidentally caught the eye of a handsome, gray-skinned man who winked at me. Blushing, I closed my eyes and focused on the luxury of Sindri’s mouth.

Before long, I came, shuddering in Loki’s grasp.

Sindri emerged, face glistening. “You were right,” she told Loki, grinning. “Sweet.”

~

It felt like the halfway point between sleep and waking, where dreams melded with reality. I remembered brief flashes only. Were the torches burning something more than incense?

Loki was always nearby. Even when he wasn’t the one fucking me, he was close, keeping an eye out for trouble or cues that I wanted to leave.

Strangely, I didn’t. If anyone had described this place to me a few months ago, I would have called it the last place I’d ever find myself; but after the first moment of distrust, the people went out of their way to make sure I felt comfortable.

Loki took what looked like a piece of chocolate from a tray, ate it, and pressed another to my lips.

“What’s this?” I asked, knowing that nothing was as it seemed in this place.

“It will let you come over and over again,” he said.

I opened my mouth, letting him place the sweet on my tongue. It tasted like regular chocolate, if slightly bitter.

~

I was on all fours, being fucked from behind, and I looked over my shoulder to see who it was. The man resembled Loki, but the color of his eyes and length of his hair were just a little off.

“That’s it,” said the real Loki’s voice, coming from in front of me. Loki was on a couch, jacking off as he watched his lookalike take me.

A rush of heat pooled between my legs.

Loki’s eyes swept over us, drinking in the sight. “How does she feel?” he asked.

“So good,” said not-Loki behind me, his grip on my hips tightening.

Loki groaned, his hand sliding up and down his cock a little faster. “You look gorgeous, sweetheart,” he told me. “Just gorgeous.”

I beckoned him forward and opened my mouth.

“Shit,” he said. He couldn’t get to his feet fast enough. He grabbed a handful of my hair to still my head and slid into my mouth.

Now two Lokis were fucking me from both ends, and it was ecstasy. Why, oh why, had we never come here before?

~

Loki and I were sprawled on a couch. He was fingering me while one of the winged women I’d noticed earlier bounced up and down in his lap.

With the part of my mind that wasn’t solely fixed on Loki’s fingers thrusting in and out, I pondered the room full of jotuns. They were all, as far as I could tell, Aesir-sized. “I thought jotuns were giants,” I mused.

The figures around me roared with laughter (some of them actually roaring). “Jotuns are only giants when they’re fighting,” Loki explained. “And since that’s the only time most Asgardians see them, of course, they’d assume they were giant.”

“We’re shapeshifters, love,” the winged woman said. “We look like whatever we please.”

~

Loki had changed into a woman at some point, keeping her raven hair and twisty horns. She was eating me out while simultaneously being fucked from behind by the fur-covered man. “Shit, just like that,” she told him, removing her mouth from my cunt to speak.

Needy, I pulled her face back down by her horns.

~

“What’s this?” I asked Loki as he put a glass of something in my hand and sat me down.

“Just water,” he said. “You’re taking a break.”

“No,” I tried to push him away and stand. “I can keep going!”

“Sigyn,” he pressed me firmly back down, smiling benevolently. “You’re going to sit here for five minutes and drink this water.”

I relented.

~

The gray-skinned man I’d caught the eye of before approached us. Up close, I saw that his skin had the smooth, hard texture of polished stone. “May I borrow the lady?” he asked Loki, who was currently sucking some man’s dick while the man played with my hair.

Loki released the dick with a pop and glanced over at me. I was on the couch, finishing my glass of water. “It’s up to her,” he said.

I nodded shyly, and the stone man led me to a nearby cushion on the ground. His hand in mine was cool to the touch.

He sat, pulling me into his lap. “Hello, beautiful,” he said in a gravelly voice. “The Prince of Asgard has been keeping you to himself.” He brushed his hands down my chest, skimming my breasts.

A frisson raised the hairs along my spine.

“What gems they’re hoarding in that golden monstrosity, hmm?” He caressed his thumb across my hairline.

“I’m just a lady’s maid,” I whispered, not wanting him to get the wrong idea.

“Oh no, lovely,” he said, still fixing me with that piercing stare. “You are a treasure.” He guided his cock to my opening.

I sank onto him slowly, letting out a breath.

“That’s it, beautiful,” still in that deep growl.

I pushed up from my knees and sank down again.

Large hands encircled my torso, guiding me to rise and fall, and the jotun man leaned in for a kiss. His mouth was pleasantly warm, contrasting the coolness of his skin. He kissed me with calm surety.

His length was hard and long, reaching places deep inside me. He felt good, good, good.

“Hold on, lovely,” he said, and he flipped us over. My back against the wide cushion now, he took control, still with long, languid strokes. His chest was broad and muscular, completely smothering me, and his dick was pushing deeper and deeper with every thrust.

I moaned. I threaded my arms around his neck and held him close. “Fuck.”

“I’ve never had an Aesir before,” he said. “You’re delightfully soft and warm. I might not let Loki take you back.”

I just whimpered, unable to respond beyond that. He was overwhelming me with sensation. He was so heavy and strong that I was utterly at his mercy, but he handled me gently, as if I were fragile, precious. I should have been afraid; I should have been afraid of all these people, who, if stories were believed, were vicious, backstabbing brutes. But I wasn’t. I was naked, letting them have their way with me as they pleased, and I wasn’t afraid in the slightest.

He continued his stream of praise in a low rumble. “You’re taking me so well, little one. Oh, you’re immaculate, divine. I want to fill you with my cum until you overflow.”

I clenched at that, making him utter a string of curses under his breath and roll his hips against mine faster. “Yes,” I said, arching into him. “Please, more!”

He delivered. Harder and harder he drove into me until my toes were curling and my nails scrabbled for purchase on his back. “How pretty you’ll look coming undone beneath me,” he said. “Tell me you’re close.”

“Norns, yes,” I replied. I was right on the edge, every powerful surge of his body winding the coil in my stomach tighter and tighter. “Oh, I’m—” Then I groaned, every muscle tensing, contracting.

He came too. He held his position, buried inside me, as he expelled thick ropes of cum.

He waited until our breathing had regained a normal pace to pull away. “Well,” he said, brushing my sticky hair back from my face, “Loki is a damn lucky man. If he ever messes up, come find me.”

~

“Sigyn.” Loki was gently shaking me awake.

I sat up. I’d been laying on a fur blanket. “Oh my goodness, I fell asleep!”

He smiled, his face shining with adoration. “It’s time to go, love.”

I nodded, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and I took the dress he handed me.

“What did you think?” Loki asked as we left.

More things than my curiosity were satisfied. “I think I’m so sore that I won’t be able to walk for days!”

He laughed. “You don’t have to. Here, get on my back and hold on tight.” Instantly, Loki was a man no longer but a giant, gray wolf with emerald eyes.

I climbed carefully on top of him and buried my hands in his thick fur. He bounded away, carrying me all the way back to Asgard.


	16. Different Worlds

**Loki**

Sigyn was curled up on a sofa, napping like a kitten. Sindri, Elgar, and I watched her from across the room.

“She’ss not really your usual type,” Sindri teased. “What happened to ‘women who can put you in your place’?”

I threw back a shot. I’d heroically abstained from alcohol all night, wanting to keep my wits about me, but we would be leaving soon anyway.

“If I knew you’d moved on to doe-eyed innocentss, I’d have presented differently,” she said.

Elgar let out a deep, rumbling chuckle. “No, I get it. I’m pretty smitten with her myself.”

“Don’t get any ideas, rock boy,” I warned.

“Oh,” he said, still eyeing Sigyn’s sleeping form, “I’m getting lots of ideas. But worry not,” he thumped my back, “I won’t act on any of them without your approval.”

“But seriously, Loki,” Sindri said. “What in the nine worldss iss going on with you?”

These were my friends, better friends than I had back on Asgard anyway. If I couldn’t admit it to them, I couldn’t admit it to anyone. “I’m in love,” I said, bracing myself for their laughter.

It was long and cruel. Sindri actually slid off her chair, in stitches.

“Fuck me,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “I’m going soft.” I joined their laughter. It  _ was _ funny; notorious womanizer Loki Laufeyson fell in love. “It’s insanity, how fast this girl commandeered my life. But she’s all I think about. I swear, if someone doesn’t check me, I’m going to marry her.”

They stopped laughing, the shock evident on their faces.

Sindri reappraised Sigyn, probably trying to figure out what made this woman so special.

“I heard you broke it off with Angrboda,” Elgar said, “but I hadn’t realized how serious this was. So Sigyn isn’t just a fling?”

“No.” I raised my head. Now that I’d begun talking, I couldn’t halt the flow of my words. “And I know that I’ll only wind up hurting her, that this is doomed to disaster. I need to let her go now because she will never leave me. But I just… can’t.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Elgar said. “If you truly love her, you will find a way to make it work.”

I shook my head. “I’ve done the readings, and I suspect Frigga has too. There’s a hundred futures before us, and they all end in pain.”

“Loki,” Sindri said somberly, “you know that trying to change fate only bringss about what we wish to avoid. All you can do is make the choicess you think are best here and now, and leave the rest to the Nornss.”

I took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. I’ll drive myself mad worrying.”

Elgar grinned. “I expect a wedding invitation. I don’t care if the gods shoot us on sight; I’m going to be there to see Loki Odinson get hitched.”

I let him pull me out of my funk. “There’ll be a decoy ceremony in Asgard and a real one here,” I joked. “Now,” I stretched, “I really must be getting back. Lots of scheming to do if I’m going to take over.”

~

**Sigyn**

The day after our sexual escapades with the jotuns, I was resting in Loki’s living room, trying to read a book on jotun traditional practices, but the author was Vanir and clearly not concerned with checking his sources. The second chapter stated that, though magical by nature, most jotuns did not develop their skills and so achieved only rudimentary ability. Only the truly proficient could shrink themselves to the size of Vanir and Aesir to interact with the more civilized races.

I closed the book.

Now my thoughts turned to Loki and the side of him I saw yesterday. I was okay with it, but I was obviously different from those people. “Loki?” I asked. He looked up from his desk. “Do you miss… Do you wish I was more…” I couldn’t finish.

He abandoned his work to sit next to me. “Hey,” he said gently. “If I wanted another Angrboda, that’s who I’d be with. But I don’t. I love you, Sigyn, and I don’t want you changing to fit an image in your mind of the kind of woman you think I prefer.” He brushed his knuckles across my jawline. “Understand?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank you for confiding in me your fears. Any others I can quell?”

“It’s not a fear, exactly,” I bit my lip, “but could you tell me about your children?”

He leaned back, his face pained. “There isn’t much to tell. I was not the fathering sort to begin with, but to be fair, I didn’t have much of a chance to be. Hold on.” He scanned the room as if looking for hidden listeners, then he stood and muttered some words under his breath, touching the door then the walls. “Just making sure my charms to prevent eavesdropping are still in place.”

What was he going to say that he was worried might be overheard? My heartbeat quickened.

Loki sat back down, and I took his hand. “Odin kidnapped them when they were still young,” he said.

I sucked in a breath. That didn’t sound like the Allfather. He must have had a reason. But kidnap children?

“There’s a prophecy, you see, that my children are a threat to the gods. Fenrir was bound with the strongest chain the dwarves could forge, Jormungandr was tossed in the sea, and Hel was banished to rule the underworld.” Loki was shaking, his gaze unfocused. “Though I think she’s as happy as she could be. She, she had to grow up fast.”

I hadn’t expected this, or I would never have asked.

“I always sympathized with Hel the most. We both of us are torn between two worlds.” He let out a breath that was half laugh. “Though a little more explicitly in her case.”

“What worlds?” I whispered.

“The living and the dead.” He gestured like he was cutting a line down his face and torso. “On one side, she’s a beautiful young woman, and on the other, a rotting corpse.”

Father of Monsters, that’s what they called him. I wondered briefly what our children would look like, if we ever had them, then I shoved that thought right down. “Could I meet her?” I asked.

Loki looked at me then, ashamed. “You could. I visit her occasionally, more out of a sense of duty than anything. To be quite honest, she scares me.”

What would this woman be like, who had lived her whole life rejected? “And what worlds are you torn between?”

“Odin had good intentions,” he said, “when he took me as a baby from Jotunheim. He wished to bridge the gap between the two peoples. But he doomed me to life as an outcast. I’m too Asgardian for the jotuns, and too jotun for the Asgardians.”

I slid into his lap and held him tight, overwhelmed. He wouldn’t want my pity, but he could have my compassion. “You’re just right for me,” I said.

He stroked my back in silence.


	17. Sleipnir

**Sigyn**

Loki was getting ready to attend some dinner or something, a few days later, and I was in a teasing mood. “There’s still one child we have to talk about,” I said.

“Oh-oh?” came his nervous voice from the other room.

“Eight legs, that’s a lot to push out. Must have been painful.”

Loki poked his head around the door. I continued calmly pretending to read my book. “Darling, you see, the gods were in a predicament, and I really had no other options…”

I turned a page.

“Sigyn, my love.” He squatted in front of me. “My jewel, my everything.”

I crossed my arms, trying desperately to keep my smile at bay. He deserved to flounder a bit. “You fucked a horse, Loki,” I accused.

“It was for a good cause,” he said.

“You enjoyed it.”

“I did.”

And it was so stupid, he was grinning that grin I could never resist, that I forgave him instantly. What else could I do?

“I have to go now, sweetheart,” he said, eyes still flashing with mischief, “but we can talk about this later if you’d like.”

I winced. “I’d actually prefer if we never, ever mentioned it again,” I said.

He swept me up in a kiss. “Agreed.”


	18. Two Disastrous Dinners

**Loki**

I thought it high time to start mending my public image, so I was making an effort to appear at social events. This evening, Thor was hosting a dinner for a large party of male friends. There would be ale, and jokes, and meat, he told me, entreating me to come.

“Sounds great,” I said through gritted teeth.

He looked so happy that I felt bad, and I resolved to try to enjoy myself.

The dinner began pleasant enough. We congregated in the Great Hall, lit by a roaring fire. The food was as good as promised, and I started to relax.

Thor told a story about wrestling with a wild boar, received with much congratulations and banging of flagons on tables (spilling perfectly good ale, I might add). The two of us were congratulated on our chance to become Odin’s heir, and bets were placed around the room on who it would be. Only pretty-boy Balder bet on me, probably feeling sorry for me.

Since he’d so graciously offered me an overture of friendliness, I thought it politic to offer him one as well. “If I become king,” I said loudly enough for our neighbors to hear, “I’m making you an advisor. Clearly, you’re the only one here with a smidgen of sense.” I smiled, and the audience laughed good-naturedly.

As the evening progressed, the topic of conversation predictably turned to women.

“What is going on between you and Lady Sif, anyway?” Fandral asked Thor.

“And if it’s not serious,” someone else added, “mind if I butt in?”

Thor snorted. “Hel if I know. But she’s the only woman I’ve ever met who can out-drink me.”

“She’s the only  _ person _ who can out-drink you,” Volstagg corrected. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

This was the most prominent discussion, but up and down the table, other conversations brewed. I was content to sit back and listen.

Apparently, Balder’d had his heart broken by a Vanir girl, and Hogun never showed an interest in anybody. “Do you even like women?” his teaser asked.

Then, my name. Just two seats to the right of me, a man I didn’t know was tearing into a leg of lamb, loudly discussing my dating life.

“All I’m sayin’ is,” the man continued, “if I were in the prince’s shoes, I’d be going after goddesses, not their maids. That Sigyn must be a damn good fuck if he…”

Then, before I could consciously process the movement, I’d leaped out of my seat, grabbed the man’s shirtfront, and stuck a knife to his throat. “Take it back,” I said in a deadly voice. So much for improving my public image.

The hall had gone quiet.

“Loki,” Thor said, on his feet now and pulling me away. “He’s learned his lesson.”

I shrugged him off and sheathed my knife, breathing heavily.

Thor raised his voice, “But if anyone disrespects the lady Sigyn again, I won’t stop my brother. In fact, I’ll hold the idiot still so Loki has a better shot. Is that understood?” There was a chorus of “Understood” and “Yes, Thor” through the hall.

I didn’t want to leave on that note, but I also didn’t know what was appropriate to say or do next.

I was saved by, of all things, a messenger from the king. “Prince Loki?” said a servant, uncomfortably taking in the tension through the room. “Ah, the Allfather wants to see you.”

And so it began. This was the first test, I was sure of it, and I mustered my wits as best as I could. “I’m coming,” I said, and followed the messenger out of the hall without a backward glance.

Odin was alone, looking surprisingly jovial, like the prospect of the competition between his sons was reinvigorating him. “Loki!” he called. “I want you to pack. Tomorrow, the two of us are going on a hunting trip.”

I tried to look excited. “Just like the old days, huh?” Make him remember that we’d been close, once.

“Just like the old days. Now get some rest, and meet me here in the morning.”

I bowed and withdrew, pondering this new development. Thor wasn’t coming, so this was a test for me. Did Odin have mischief planned, or would he drop us in dangerous territory just to see what happened? Or was this a get-to-know-you kind of trip, in which case we’d be doing more talking than hunting? Too many unknowns.

Sigyn was waiting for me, but I told her I needed rest, and she took the hint.

I tried to sleep, but worries kept waking me. For all I knew, Odin would judge my fitness for kingship on this trip alone, so I had to prove myself.

I met him in the wee hours of the morning, supplies for a few days slung over my shoulder. He was in the drab clothes of a Midgardian commoner.

“Playing pretend, are we?” I asked.

“It’s good to shed the royal robes every once in a while and walk amongst your people.” And ask probing questions to see what they thought of you. And smite them if you didn’t like the answers.

“I’ll remember that when I’m king,” I said. I shifted my outfit, making it plainer, and the two of us set off down the Bifrost.

Heimdall was at his station, as usual, despite the early hour. “Where shall I send you?” he asked.

“Surprise us,” Odin said.

So he didn’t have a plan. Or, he’d told Heimdall our destination in advance, and this charade was for my benefit.

We touched down in a lush forest, insects and birds heralding the dawn. Midgard? Alfheim? Wherever we were, the woods were pretty, and the two of us spent a pleasant enough morning tracking wild game.

“I’m afraid we’re too far behind this herd,” I said in the afternoon, peering at a hoofprint in the mulch. “We could find their water source and wait for them there.”

“Patience is rewarded,” Odin said. “A good hunter will follow tracks for days, knowing his quarry lies at the end.”

“A good hunter also knows when to cut his losses and try something new,” I replied.

“All right, lead the way. Let’s see what you would do.”

I turned into a hawk and flew straight up, scanning above the forest. Then I swooped back down and rejoined Odin as a man. “There’s a river half a mile in that direction. I say we follow it and see where it leads.”

“Some might call that cheating, son,” Odin said, walking in the direction I’d indicated.

“Some might be jealous,” I said, grinning. We walked along the river until twilight dampened the air. When we came to some rapids, I stilled Odin with a hand. “There’s an otter there,” I whispered. I bent down and selected a smooth, round stone from the riverbed, setting it in my sling. I had one shot. If I missed, I’d startle the otter, and we’d lose our chance for fresh meat tonight. I wound the sling, released…

And struck the otter in the head just as it was emerging from the river with its own catch, a nice-sized salmon. It collapsed on the bank, and I darted forward and slit its throat before it could regain consciousness.

Odin examined the otter and the salmon. “Not bad,” he said.

“Not bad? That was two kills with one stone,” I bragged. I closed my eyes, listening to the burble of the river and the songs of the birds. “This was a good idea, Father,” I said. “I’ve been cooped up in the palace for too long. It’s so pleasant to be in the open air, not trapped by four walls…” I opened my eyes. “Father?”

He’d bagged our catch and was walking away. “I think I see a little homestead nearby,” he said. “Let’s pop in and see if they’ll offer us shelter for the night in exchange for dinner.”

I rose, chuckling, and followed him. It was so like Odin to want to interact with the humans, see how long it took before they realized who he was.

The man of the house greeted us, introducing himself as Hreidmarr.

Odin gave the usual spiel. Weary travelers in need of lodging, blah blah blah. But when he opened the pack to show our bounty, Hreidmarr’s face grew white.

“Fáfnir! Reginn!” he called, and two strapping young men ran out of the house.

“What is it, Father?” one of them asked.

I sensed the danger we were in, even if I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. Did they not like strangers hunting on their land or something?

“These men,” Hreidmarr said, shaking with fury, “have slaughtered your brother.”

Shit. I wanted to turn into a bird and flee or fight back with magic as Hreidmarr and his sons attacked and bound us, but Odin wasn’t pulling out his magic, and I took my cues from him.

“Otr,” Hreidmarr said as he tied my hands with a leather cord, “liked to play in the river as an otter. You killed him.”

“How was I supposed to know?” I asked. “You can’t blame me for seeing a normal-looking otter and not bothering to ask, ‘Excuse me, are you actually a dwarf by chance?’ ” For, now that I saw them up close, the men were clearly dark elves.

“What can we do to make it right?” asked Odin.

“Your lives would be a good start,” snarled Hreidmarr.

I had to get us out of this. Odin was testing me, and I’d killed Otr. “How about gold instead?” I asked. Everyone liked gold.

Hreidmarr paused. “How much gold?”

“As much as you want.”

“Enough to fill Otr’s skin,” Hreidmarr said. “Plus enough to cover every hair, whisker, and claw.”

“I can do that,” I said, my mind racing. If we were in the land of the dwarves, I knew a place I might be able to procure a lot of gold fast.

“You can go,” Hreidmarr said, releasing me from my bonds, “but the old man stays, a hostage to make sure you keep your end of the bargain. And you must swear to follow through, or we take your lives.”

The appropriate oaths exchanged, I took off into the forest. Andvari, Andvari, I had to find the dark elf Andvari. Rumor had it he was sitting on quite the stash, and whoever caught him was entitled to take what he pleased.

I soared over the woods, looking for where the river flowed into a cave. There. I dove into the cavern and resumed the appearance of a man. Wading into the water, I spotted a fish whose scales gleamed like gold.

It took me many tries to capture the fish with my bare hands. (We really needed a better way to catch fish. I would think on it.) But catch him I did, and I squeezed him until he turned into a sputtering little dwarf.

“Enough!” he said dejectedly. “You win. I assume you’re here for the gold?”

“Precisely. Hand it all over.”

Andvari collected gold coins, jewelry, and nuggets from hiding places around the cave. I kept hold of his wrist the whole time, making sure he didn’t escape. He piled all the gold in a great heap, but I saw him shiftily slip one ring into a pocket.

“That too,” I said.

He swallowed, turning red. “Not this ring, you can’t have this ring! With it, I’m able to multiply my wealth. It’s the reason I always have so much gold on hand for thieves like you to steal!”

“That sounds valuable. I want the ring, too.”

He tried once more to talk me out of it. “There’s a curse. Whoever possesses this ring has terrible luck!”

“Then you’ll be glad I’m relieving you of it,” I said. I took the ring on top of all the other gold and lugged it back to Hreidmarr’s house.

Hreidmarr had flayed the otter, and when I returned, he stuffed the skin with gold. Then he laid it on the ground, and we piled gold on top until the whole thing was covered. Hreidmarr inspected the pile. Then he shook his head. “The tip of this whisker is poking out,” he said.

I removed the ring from my pocket and slid it over the whisker, and our debt was repaid. I only informed the dwarves of the ring’s curse as we walked away, free and clear.

Odin and I started back for Asgard in silence.

“You performed poorly, Loki,” he finally said.

“So I ruined a few people’s lives,” I said, desperate to salvage the situation. “Hey, I saved ours!”

“After you endangered them.”

How was I supposed to know the otter was a fucking person? And if Odin hadn’t decided to be social, we would have been just fine. But I bit my tongue, accepting defeat. It would do no good to argue.

I just hoped I hadn’t ruined my chances for the throne.


	19. Anticipation

**Sigyn**

When Loki wasn’t in meetings, with Odin or his brother, or chatting up the nobles at public events, he was shut away in his office. He worked into the night, sleeping only when he collapsed from exhaustion.

“This isn’t good for you,” I tried to tell him. “You’re making yourself sick.”

“It’s this government,” he spat. “They’re idiots, all of them! Sometimes I think we need a good Ragnarok. Just wipe out this mess and start over.”

“Loki,” I said, “you’re worrying me. I don’t like this side of you.”

“Well then, maybe you don’t like me at all!”

He was instantly remorseful as soon as he said it, but I’d had enough. “I’m going back to Freya’s rooms,” I said, gathering my things.

“Sigyn,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it. I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

“It’s just another week,” he said.

“Right.” Fuming, I left. Just another week. But if he was made heir? Would the madness end then? I doubted I would stick around if this new Loki became permanent.

~

**Loki**

Thor returned from his adventure, bearing a cauldron as tall as he was. He’d been in Jotunheim, retrieving the biggest vat for brewing ale that ever existed—that was his idea of a heroic quest.

He told the story at dinner, how he’d gone to Hymir’s hall with the god Tyr, how Hymir had invited him to go fishing, and while the giant had pulled in two large whales, Thor had hooked the World Serpent himself, Jormungandr, and would have caught and killed him, too, if Hymir hadn’t cut the line.

“The giant feared for the boat,” Thor said. “It was rocking and taking in water because the Serpent and I were battling with great force as I tried to reel him in.”

I was proud of my son for putting up a good fight, but I couldn’t help wishing he’d done his uncle just a little more damage.

Thor continued the story. Back in Hymir’s castle, the giant was having a party. There were hundreds of giants, and they couldn’t have looked uglier or more intimidating if they’d tried.

I disguised my snort of laughter as a coughing fit. Sigyn, sitting next to me, handed me a glass of water.

“Hymir promised I could have the ale cauldron if I were able to break his drinking cup,” Thor continued, “and I said, ‘No problem, giant. I’m excellent at smashing things.’”

The crowd cheered. Seriously,  _ this _ was their choice of king?

Thor first tried throwing the cup against a wall, and though the wall broke, the cup was unaffected. Then Thor hit the cup against Hymir’s thick skull, and it broke. Crude, but effective. Full of regret at their treasure being taken from them, the giants handed over the cauldron. “Tyr and I made our escape,” Thor said, “but the cauldron was heavy, and we couldn’t run while carrying it. The giants, stupid brutes, came after us, weapons out and death in their eyes.”

Oh no. I had a bad feeling about this.

“Tyr suggested we drop the cauldron and make a run for it, but I said, ‘There are only 200 of them! We’ll kill them all.’”

The crowd was cheering, and I saw it, the moment Sigyn realized that the section of Jotunheim by the sea was the same place we’d visited, that some of the jotuns she’d met could be dead now, and I dropped a fork, yanking her under the table.

“Loki,” she said, face white, and I hushed her.

“You’re not going to react,” I said in quick, quiet tones, forbidding argument. “Not here. They won’t understand, and if you try to explain, in the midst of Thor’s triumph, you’ll be labeled an enemy. You’re going to look disinterested at most, and if you can’t control your expressions, you’re going to claim a headache and go back to my rooms and wait for me there. Do you understand?”

She nodded. She took several deep breaths, putting on a mask of calm that impressed even me, and we sat back up.

Neither of us spoke much the rest of dinner, and thankfully no one noticed when we slipped out a little early.

As soon as the door to my rooms shut behind us, she crumbled. “How could he just— And they laughed! Gods, Loki, two hundred people!”

“He’s done it before,” I said. “They have all slaughtered thousands of jotuns. Who cares about monsters, right? Did you care before meeting me?”

“I, I didn’t know,” she said, miserable. Then, “We have to stop it, somehow.”

“I’m trying, love,” I said, taking her hands. “Why do you think I’m struggling so hard to become king?”

She let her head fall against my chest. “Whatever you need, I’ll support you. I’m sorry I haven’t been aiding you enough.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Thank you. And I promise to listen when you warn me I’m going too far.”

“Do you think,” she whispered, “that anyone I met…”

I considered sparing her the truth, but she deserved to know. “Elgar, the man who resembled stone, was a warrior under Hymir. I have little hope that he is still alive.”

She nodded, and tears soaked the front of my shirt.


	20. Inheritance

**Loki**

The ceremony to name Odin’s official heir took place on the same fairgrounds as the harvest festival. The sun set earlier this late in the year, so the field was dark already. There would be feasting after the announcement, another excuse to celebrate, and the crowds had gathered en masse.

Sporadic torches provided flickering light, glinting off weapons and jewelry.

“Good luck,” Sigyn told me, squeezing my arm. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Thor and I approached Odin. The crowd left a wide circle around us so the three of us could be seen.

“My sons,” Odin said in a carrying voice. “The time has come for me to proclaim my successor. The choice was far from easy, for the fate of my beloved Asgard hangs in the balance.”

Get on with it.

“But after much deliberation, I have decided that my heir will be…”

He held the longest dramatic pause in history. My hands were clenched so tight that my knuckles were turning pale.

“...Thor.”

Pandemonium. Cries of joy and relief surrounded me, but all I noticed was the Old Man’s face, watching me with as much intensity as I watched him. It was strangely calm in that bubble of just the two of us. I flickered my eyes pointedly toward the forest.

“Why?” I asked when we were alone in the trees. “Is it just because I’m a jotun? Less popular than Thor? Would you value public approval over actual governing ability?”

“It is too late to change the verdict now,” he said, “so I know you are just letting off steam. I will let you. But remember: To speak is to alter the universe in some small way. Guard your words, for they have power.”

I paced. “By all accounts, I am the obvious choice to follow in your footsteps. The similarities between us are undeniable. Do you and Thor have a system of secret signals for communicating?” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I don’t understand why you never acknowledge our resemblance; I’m more your son than he, though I’m the adopted one.

“We both practice seidr,” I said, letting out the frustration that had pulled me taught as a bowstring over this past month. “We both appreciate the subtleties and complexities of runes. We both like to dress up and play pretend. We’re both driven, selfish. We’re both known to be crafty, though you manage to give it respectability.”

Then I realized, in a moment of glaring clarity. “You’re afraid,” I said. “Afraid that if you favored me over Thor, they might look a little closer at all the ways we’re similar.” Thor and I were the two sides of him, the warrior and the schemer, and to choose me would be admitting which side was really in control.

He neither denied nor confirmed this accusation, but I hadn’t expected him to.

And suddenly, I was afraid—because I saw myself not as a pitiful second son, a potential heir, but a political threat whose very existence and nature called into question Odin’s authority. And a threat to the king could never feel safe.

My instinct was to assure him this moment that I would abandon all attempts at the throne, but I knew that anything I said now would have consequences. Words had power, and I could not, would not speak another word to him until I’d thought through every angle of this change in our relationship.

In a panic, I went back to the party. Now, I saw assassins in every shadowy figure, and I didn’t consume a morsel more of food or sip of drink. A taster would be useful. Could I hire one in secret?

I had to stay at the celebration, to be seen, to show that I was not frightened of immediate repercussions for my revelation. If I left, Odin might think that I was plotting and decide to dispose of me before I could him.

Poor Sigyn thought I was distressed because I hadn’t been chosen as the heir, but really—

Sigyn! She was in danger and didn’t know it. I cursed myself for only thinking of her now. What easier, better way to cripple me than hurt her? I noticed that she’d been eating roast boar from the spit. That was probably fine; it would be challenging to poison such an open, communal dish, but just to be safe, I took her plate from her and tossed its contents in the trash.

She asked what I was doing but there was a ringing in my ears and I couldn’t answer. “Let’s take a trip,” I said instead, my voice sounding strange, like the sound was traveling through water. “You and me. Let’s get away for a while, someplace far.”

Frigga approached, offering her sympathy, and saw that I was ill-at-ease. “Are you all right?” she asked.

What could I say to her? ‘I’m scared that your husband is plotting to discredit or kill me?’ I spotted Odin across the way, on the other side of a fire, and his eyes were fixed on me, calculating. Overhead, his ravens Huginn and Muninn circled like vultures expecting a meal.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sigyn asked. She felt my forehead. “You’re burning up. Frigga, I’m going to take him home.”

“Oh, what a shame!” Frigga said. “I’ll tell Thor and Odin why you couldn’t stay.”

“Yes,” I said, watching Odin watching me. “Tell them I’m out of my wits and completely harmless! Terribly, terribly nonthreatening. Tell them that after this night, I’ve relinquished all hopes of the crown, and I bear them no ill will!”

Sigyn dragged me away.


	21. Danger

**Sigyn**

Loki was trapped in his head, fixated on a problem I couldn’t begin to guess at. He seemed to think we were in danger, and though his fever was probably interfering with his reasoning ability, though he’d just experienced an enormous defeat and was thus likely overreacting, I couldn’t completely disregard the possibility that he was right. Loki was the smartest person I knew, and if he were worried—if he seemed like he knew something I didn’t—then I’d be a fool not to worry too.

I had one hand on his arm and the other on his back, intending to support and guide him, but it was unclear which of us led the other. “Are we going back to your rooms?” I asked once we reached the glittering doors of the palace, which had once inspired awe in me and now just looked absurd.

“No, I think not,” he said. “It’s too obvious. Let’s go to your room, though it is less well-guarded.”

I declined to ask what or who he was scared of, for I guessed that if I knew, I would be too afraid to be any use to him. Better I stayed calm, clear-headed.

My room was small: bed, dresser, tub, and washbasin. No windows. But the furnishings were well-made, and a white rug softened the stone floor. Once we’d entered, I slid the bolt behind us.

“I think you should drink some water and get some rest,” I said, being as calm and clear-headed as I could.

“In a moment,” Loki said. “First, I must place basic wards around this room, and then you, as I should have done long ago.”

“You really think we’re in danger?” I asked.

“I do.” He took out a tiny knife and carved a line of runes into the wooden door-frame. Then he circled the room, keeping one hand on the wall in a continuous loop, muttering. When he’d returned to the start of the circle, he asked, “There are no other entrances to this room?”

“Just the door,” I said.

“Good. Stand here. I’m going to place some magical protections on you.”

I stood where he indicated, in the middle of the rug. He circled me, dragging his fingers across my skin and muttering in that quiet intonation he used for spellcasting. I felt the magic trickle over my skin, hot and cold at once, tingling as it seeped into me. He spent much longer on me than he had on the room, and though I wondered what all was being done to me, I trusted him.

“There,” he said finally, sagging into the wall. “That’s as much as I can manage for now. I’ll do more later when I’ve regained some strength.”

I hoped he hadn’t just expended all his energy protecting me for nothing. I hoped this would not be the reason he died tonight, because he was weakened and vulnerable from casting spells on me. “Sit on the bed, now,” I said, and I poured him a glass of water from my pitcher. “Drink this.”

He obeyed.

I sat next to him. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I asked in a small voice.

“Something… occurred between Odin and me,” he said, measuring his words. “He has an incentive to harm me, and by extension, you, though I do not know how soon he will act upon it.”

“Because Thor was named heir?” I guessed.

“That ties into it, but I think I knew, deep down, that I never could become king.” He coughed into his arm. “No, this is something else. Something unspoken that I foolishly spoke into existence.”

“Loki,” I said. I didn’t want to offend him, but I’d noticed a frightening pattern to the things he confided in me, and maybe he didn’t see it himself, so I had to mention it. “You seem to blame the Allfather for everything wrong in your life, and, well, you know him much better than I do, but could it be possible that he isn’t plotting against you? Did he actually say anything to threaten you?”

“No, he said nothing.” He took another drink, smiling grimly. “And it is just possible that this is all in my head, that the game we’ve been playing since I was old enough to lie has been no game at all, but I—” Then he coughed again, and kept coughing, sliding off the bed and onto all fours.

“Loki!” I said, horrified. What should I do? What was wrong with him? Dread accompanied the realization that he’d been right. Even if it wasn’t Odin,  _ someone _ was out to get him.

“Water,” he gasped. “Get Eir.”

I bolted out of the room. Would the healing goddess be at the ceremony? I hadn’t remembered seeing her there, and I heard she rarely left the infirmary, so that was the direction I ran. My satin shoes weren’t made for sprinting, so I kicked them off and ran through the halls barefoot.

Gasping, I tore open the door to the infirmary, startling an assistant. “I need to see Eir immediately!”

The goddess herself looked up from speaking to a patient. She appeared middle-aged, her hair in a bun at the base of her neck. “What is the matter?”

“Loki,” I said. “I think he’s been poisoned.”

She grabbed a bag. “Hild, come with us,” she told the assistant. Then she asked me, “Where?”

“My room,” I said, and we ran all the way back, though my side burned.

When Eir touched the doorknob, she jolted back as if shocked.

I remembered the wards Loki had put on the room. “I think I have to do it,” I said, opening the door with no problem. If I hadn’t been there, would no one have been able to reach him?

Loki was on his back, eyes open and gasping.

“Where did the poison come from?” Eir asked. “Inhaled? Ingested?”

I was crying, but I managed to speak. “I think it came from that water. He was drinking it, and then he started coughing.”

She nodded, sharp and quick, then directed Hild and me to lift Loki into a sitting position. Eir felt his pulse and put her ear to his mouth to listen to his breath, asking me more questions all the while. “When did this happen?”

“Just minutes ago,” I said.

“And his symptoms were immediate?”

“A couple of minutes after he started drinking.”

Eir addressed Loki. “Nod or blink rapidly if you can understand me.”

Loki was still gasping, but he jerked his head.

“You’re a spellcaster. Is there any reason I shouldn’t try to extract the poison magically?”

He shook his head no.

Eir opened his shirt with brisk efficiency and placed her hands on his chest, brow furrowed in concentration. In moments, a stream of clear liquid floated up through his skin, then vanished.

Loki coughed, then collapsed into my arms, heaving for breath. “Thank you,” he said.

“It is my duty,” Eir replied. “But who did this to you?”

“I decline to answer.”

“My prince, if someone is poisoning the people of Asgard, I must know who you suspect is responsible!”

“If that is all,” Loki said, “I would prefer that you left now.”

Eir stood angrily, bowed, and then she and the assistant withdrew.

I helped Loki onto the bed, getting my tears under control. “I thought I’d lost you,” I said.

“Not from this pitiful attempt,” he said, leaning back against the headrest.

“Pitiful?” I squealed. “Loki, you were convulsing on the floor—”

“I was hardly convulsing. In truth, I probably could have drawn out the poison myself, but my magic was low, and I thought Eir could do a better job. No, it’s almost as if…”

Then Frigga’s worried voice said, “Loki, open this door!”

I looked at him, and he nodded, so I opened it to reveal not just Frigga but Odin. She rushed to Loki’s side, but Odin stood in the corner. I watched him nervously.

She said a servant had seen me running with Eir and guessed the worst.

Loki assured her that he was fine, just needed rest. Could she bring him something to eat, perhaps?

Frigga left, and the air in the room chilled with the iciness of the stares Odin and Loki exchanged.

“Leave us,” Odin told me.

But Loki said, “She stays,” and Odin didn’t press the matter. “Did you do this?” Loki asked bluntly.

“Think, boy!” Odin said. “Killing you the moment after naming your brother heir is beyond senseless. And if I had wanted you dead, why would I choose such an indirect method, unlikely to succeed, that would only put you on your guard?”

“No,” Loki said, rubbing his chin, “I thought not. This was an attack on Sigyn, then.”

I gasped. “What?”

“The poison was in your water,” Loki explained. “I am nearly never here. The method was ineffective against someone of magical abilities… No, I’m afraid you were the intended target.”

My vision swam. Someone had tried to kill me.

“The perpetrator knew that you and most of the castle residents would be at the ceremony tonight,” Odin said, addressing me now. “They took advantage of that absence to sneak something into your water.”

The men talked about wards and spells to protect me, but I didn’t listen. Someone had tried to poison me, and they had gotten Loki instead.

Frigga came back with food and water. Thor arrived, having just heard what happened, and threatened to find whoever did this and grind them into the dust. My room was not meant for so many people, and I was relieved when Loki asked everyone to leave us alone for the night.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Tired, but otherwise fine,” he said.

“At least we know that Odin didn’t do this.”

“Oh, I’m not convinced of that,” he said as if it were the most natural thing in the worlds. “If he did do it, it means either that he’s coming after you to get at me, or that he doesn’t mind who gets killed in the process as long as there is a chance of hurting me. And he gave me some interesting suggestions for guarding you that give insight into where his head is at.”

This was too much. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.

“Come here, my love.”

I crawled into his arms and let him hold me.

“This attempt did not come close to killing me, though it may have looked otherwise,” he said. Steel entered his voice. “And no one is going to harm you. I swear it.”


	22. Letting Go of the Past

**Loki**

“What are you doing?” Sigyn asked when she woke. We’d shared a tense night in her tiny bed.

I was sitting on her rug, my fingers touching the ground and my eyes closed. “Investigating,” I said. “It’s hard to tell with Odin and Frigga and Eir all here last night, but I think I feel the presence of another spellcaster. Tell me, did you have any magic users over yesterday? Freya, perhaps?”

“No,” she said.

I grunted in acknowledgment. Sigyn had narrowly escaped death last night. Only by happenstance had I drunk from her pitcher first. If I hadn’t been there, I could have lost her.

I was not going to lose her.

“I am going to track this murderer down today,” I said. “I would like you to spend the day with Freya, please. Don’t let her out of your sight. And eat or drink nothing unless she or one of the other lady’s maids is also eating or drinking it.”

“Loki,” she said, clutching the blanket to her chest, “why would someone try to kill me?”

“I can’t help thinking that,” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, “it’s because of me, somehow. You are gentle and innocent; why would anyone wish you harm?”

She crawled into my lap, the blanket still wrapped around her.

“Do you wish to leave me now?” I rasped. “I understand if you do. I will bear you no ill will.”

“Not a chance,” she said.

I held her tight, one arm around her waist and the other hand at the back of her head. “I will find whoever did this,” I vowed.

~

I spoke to Heimdall next.

“Prince Loki,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Then you know why I’m here. Did you happen to see anything out of the ordinary last night?”

“I confess I did.”

I perked up. It had been a long shot only, that the Watcher would have his eyes turned inward to Asgard. “What? What did you see?”

“A person I have seen you with many times before,” he said, grave. “So I did not question when she took one of the secret paths that lead from Jotunheim to here. I assumed she was invited.”

No.

“Only hearing the news, I realized my folly,” he said. “If I had not thought it inconvenient or uncomfortable to meddle in your private affairs, I could have prevented a tragedy.” He bowed his head. “I have been a poor Watcher and Protector of Asgard.”

“The folly is my own,” I said through my pain. “I should have warned you to keep an eye out for Angrboda. And the tragedy, luckily, did not take place. But now I must confront her.”

“Would you like company?”

Strange. I had never considered Heimdall an ally (he’d caught me in too many acts of mischief as a child). Still, here he was, offering me companionship during an arduous trial. “I appreciate that more than you know,” I said, “but this I must do alone.”

“As you wish.”

I steeled myself—but how could one prepare for this, really? “Send me to her, please.”

The rainbow bridge was a cheerful, fairytale image in paintings of Asgard, but in real life, it was a formidable pyrotechnics display. Usually the grandeur of the trips to and from Asgard astounded me; however, this time, I hardly noticed the kaleidoscope of color. I was thinking about Angrboda.

She and I had met when I was just entering manhood, and we had instantly marked one another as kindred spirits. She was fierce, wild, and when you saw her, you couldn’t help thinking of avalanches and wolves. She encouraged me to explore my jotun side, and with her, I felt alive for the first time. Feeling usually trapped, I was enchanted by her untamed nature, and she had enjoyed my willingness to follow where she led and never say no.

We were good for one another in all the wrong ways. Our romance was intense, masochistic. We were broken, and we had thrown ourselves against each other’s jagged edges just to feel ourselves bleed.

I landed where the craggy mountains of Jotunheim gave way to deep forest. The familiar sight of so many dalliances sent a pang of regret through me. “Angrboda?” I called. “I’m here.”

She emerged from the mist like a spirit of the landscape itself. Her hair was twisted and braided back from her face, decorated with beads and feathers. Menace sharpened her every movement. “Loki,” she said. “My Loki.”

“You tried to kill Sigyn,” I accused.

“The little harlot thinks she can steal you from me.”

So it was true. My last hope dissolved like ice in a volcano. “I know you don’t want to accept it, but you and I are over,” I said. “I love Sigyn.”

“Bah,” she spat, advancing like a predator. “You think you are in love. But I know you, Loki, Son-of-None. I know an Aesir girl can never satisfy you as I can.”

“You’re wrong,” I said sadly. “I may have believed that once, but I’ve changed.” I stepped back, keeping distance between us. “I’ve come here to tell you that you must leave us alone. I will do anything to protect Sigyn, so if you are a threat to her, I’ll be forced to eliminate that threat.”

I saw the tensing of her muscles a split second before she attacked, and I was ready. I blocked her arm, ducked under her other fist as it swept around for a punch, grabbed her first arm and twisted it until she was bent in front of me.

She stamped on my foot and pulled out of my grasp. She elbowed me in the chest, but I used the opportunity to wrap her in a vice grip from behind, holding a knife to her throat.

“Please, please don’t make me kill you, Boda,” I said.

She laughed, high and cold, grinding her ass against me. “You don’t miss this?” she asked.

“No,” I said firmly. “Promise to leave Sigyn alone.”

“Never.” She knew just how to slip out of my grasp, having done it many times before, and then she whirled around, transforming into a brown bear and slashing at me with a giant paw.

The fight was a familiar tangle of claws and teeth. We shifted forms fast: wolf, lynx, adder, owl, wolverine. It was savage, evenly matched. We knew each other’s weaknesses and fighting style so well that every move was instinctual; we’d done this a thousand times.

But this time was different. The sexual undertones were present in our battle, but they weren’t the goal, and we aimed to injure, not pin.

I knew what I had to do, she was giving me no choice, but oh, it was too much like the past, and I couldn’t.

Until she turned back into a woman, slashing me with a dagger.

I was a man again, clutching my bleeding arm, and I remembered Sigyn, remembered that Boda had tried to poison her, and my resolve solidified.

I twisted and dodged around trees, hearing her follow. Then I conjured a false image of myself, made it turn to confront Angrboda head-on, and when she dashed up to it to drive her dagger into its chest, I stepped out from behind a tree, at her back, and snapped her neck.

Her body hit the ground.

The forest was silent and still. I sank to my knees. “Oh, Boda,” I groaned. “Why?”

I rolled her over, the lifeless body of this woman I had cared so much for, whose head was bent at an unnatural angle. I knew I had done the right thing—it was Sigyn or her—but killing Boda had killed a part of me too.

Laying my head on her chest, I felt the full meaning of her name: bodes anguish. I let myself grieve.


	23. Death Calls

**Sigyn**

Idony answered Freya’s door, and Loki was there, bruised, bleeding, and swaying with exhaustion.

“May I speak to Sigyn?” he asked.

Freya caught her breath at his disheveled appearance. “Odin’s eye! What happened to you?” She guided him to a chair, though I could tell he would rather have grabbed me and left. “Do I need to call a healer?” Freya asked.

“No, no, I’m fine,” he insisted, clearly not fine in the slightest.

Freya and I sat on either side of him. When I took his hand, he winced. “Loki,” I said, “what happened?”

“I found the person who tried to poison you.”

“Who was it?” Freya asked, either oblivious to his desire to be alone with me or feigning obliviousness.

“No one you’d know,” Loki said. “But it’s been taken care of.”

I should have been happier that the threat on my life was gone, but Loki seemed almost heartbroken, and I knew there was more to the story. “My lady,” I said, “do you mind if I have the rest of the day off?”

“Certainly,” Freya replied, a little put out. “Go take care of your man. And if there is anything I can do for either of you, let me know.”

I thanked her, and Loki and I retreated to his chambers. In his washroom, Loki pulled off his shirt with one hand, and I saw a nasty gash on his upper right arm.

“It is not as bad as it looks,” he said emptily, cleaning and bandaging the wound. Then, without any prelude, he told me, “It was Angrboda. She was jealous of you. She must have thought that if you were out of the picture, somehow I’d forget about you and return to her…” He wiped his eyes and took a shuddering breath.

Angrboda, the jotun woman who had borne Loki’s children, who had a long, painful history with him. “Did you confront her? What did she say?”

“I tried to make her see that I loved you, and we were over, but she didn’t listen. She said she wouldn’t stop coming after you.” He turned away from me, shrinking into himself, and his voice grew quiet. “I killed her.”

My hand shot to my mouth. _Murderer_ , I thought, then remembered that he was a warrior of Asgard and had probably killed many times before. And Thor had killed two hundred jotuns just recently, including Elgar, whose name I hadn’t known until he died. All through the palace and the rest of Asgard walked murderers—killing was a necessary part of life, sometimes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”

“How is this in any way— It’s not your fault, Sigyn.”

“What can I do?” I asked.

He sighed. “Normally, I would push you away and suffer on my own, but I’ve learned better.”

“I’m glad,” I said, and I was, but I was sorrowful too. I mourned for this woman who had wanted Loki so desperately she would kill for him; I mourned for Loki, who loved me so much he would kill for me.

“I am going to visit Hel,” Loki said. “I should be the one to bring her the news. You are welcome to come with me if you still want to meet her.”

So we went the next day. The entrance to Helheim, or at least the one we took, was in the cold lands of the North. The two of us journeyed through a cramped cave, then down a wooden spiral staircase in pitch blackness and mist, a torch in Loki’s hand providing the only light. The thick fog dampened the flame so that it didn’t illuminate as much as it should have.

I couldn’t imagine being banished to this place, having to spend one’s whole life closed off from the sun and breeze.

“She’s going to try and get you,” Loki warned all of a sudden. “Make you think death is seductive. Don’t listen. You must steel yourself against it now.”

That was freaking ominous. “I don’t want to die, Loki,” I told him.

“Good. It’s best to say it out loud. Here we go.”

At the bottom of the staircase flowed a river of weapons: spears, axes, swords, all grinding together toward some unknown destination. A simple bridge led over it. Finally, we approached a wall stretching left and right beyond sight. It was waist-high, not impressive as far as boundaries went, and one gate broke the monotony of stone.

“Step over the wall,” Loki instructed.

The obvious entrance was the gate in front of us, and I felt silly climbing over the wall right next to it. “Not the gate?”

“That’s for the dead.”

“Ah.” Wall, it was.

Next, we followed the trail to Hel’s palace, a gargantuan edifice of black stone. But it was inviting, in an odd, inevitable way; the building had rounded edges and an entrance that beckoned you inside and promised warmth. The air around us was frigid.

We entered a vast hall with a ceiling high enough for four people to stand on each other’s shoulders. Several archways of obsidian led into unlit passages, and the hall itself was lit with glowing balls of soft light dangling from the ceiling, shifting in color from purple to blue to red. The light gleamed on the polished floor in an eerie ambiance.

Stretching the hall’s length was a long table, set with finery and food enough for a hundred guests or more. A lone figure sat at the head of the table.

Loki and I approached.

The goddess Hel looked like half of her had died and the other half had forgotten about it. On the right, she was a dark-haired, stern beauty, and on the left, bones protruded from half-rotted flesh. One eye did not have lids at all, just an orb in a socket. ‘Unsettling’ did not begin to describe her appearance.

She spoke in low, solemn tones. “So, lover of my father, we meet at last.”

Somehow I managed to force words past my throat. “I’m Sigyn Ulladaughter,” I said.

“And I am Hel. Please, sit.” She indicated the spread of dishes with an elegant wave of her hand. “Eat.”

Loki pulled out a chair for me on her right side, her good side, and sat on her left. When he filled his plate with food, I did the same. It was delicious, I was surprised to find—wedges of cheese, jams spread on steaming bread, spiced meats, and every good thing you could imagine.

I noticed that her dress was tattered on one side and well-kept on the other. Did that happen when she put it on, or did she alter the dress to fit her aesthetic?

“You have questions,” Hel observed of me, “but are politely refraining from asking them. Well, I give you leave to ask. I doubt you will say anything I have not heard before.”

“Does it hurt?” I said without thinking. I wondered if she was in constant pain and hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Oh,” she said, showing mild surprise. “That is not the usual first question. To answer it, no. I do not feel the constant decay of my person.” She leaned her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her fist, making the gesture look refined. “You have a kind heart,” she said. “What else do you wish to know?”

“Are you happy here?” I asked. Loki was looking at me strangely, but I didn’t care.

Hel said, “It is a matter of perspective. Happiness in the world above is the absence of sadness, and I do not think I would wish for that fleeting joy when misery lurks behind every misplaced stone and false smile. The dead are kind to me. We rest peacefully. That is all. Go on, ask something else.”

“Unfortunately,” Loki interrupted, “our visit is not purely social. I have bad news for you.”

Hel raised her eyebrows. Well, one eyebrow and a bit of skin that didn’t quite reach her eye. “Your other visits were social, were they? I am pleased that you find my company so desirable.”

“A delight, my dear,” Loki said, uncomfortable. “But I must tell you that your mother is dead.”

“I know,” she said, not reacting with grief or anger or any of the other emotions I’d expected. “She’s here, and she told me. Currently, Angrboda is acquainting herself with all the delightful diversions the afterlife has to offer. I believe she particularly likes the sparring field. But you rushed down here to inform me yourself, thinking I would be angry. How sweet.”

“Are you angry?” Loki asked.

She fixed him with a hard stare, turning so that only her profile was visible to me. For a split second, I saw a regular girl before her sneer made her face unnatural again. “Why would I be angry?” she asked, “when you, quote, ‘snapped her neck from behind like a fucking coward.’ Her words, not mine.”

I was breathing heavily, and Loki was clenching his fists on the table. “I had no choice, Hela,” he said.

“No choice?” She laughed, both halves of her face grinning. “Of course, you had a choice; you’re alive. That’s what separates living people from the dead: choices. My world is simpler. No wars, no petty squabbles. Wouldn’t you like that?” Her eyes locked on mine suddenly, and I realized she was asking me a question.

“Um,” I said.

“Leave her alone,” Loki said.

She held up a skeletal hand to silence him. “I would rather she speak for herself. So answer me, lady of the gentle eyes, lady of victory, lady of courage enough to enter this place, and to love a man who has never loved another. Would you like to be dead?”

My mouth felt dry. “Life holds many pleasures,” I said tentatively. “Friendship, love…”

“But at what cost? Does the good really outweigh all the evil? There is so much suffering in the world.” She closed her eye, like she was feeling every bit of that suffering, then opened it again to fix me with that potent stare. “Do you not wish, sometimes, that the pain would fade away, that you never had to meet people’s expectations, feel their judgment, suffer at their hands? Do you not long for peace?”

“We’re going,” Loki said, standing abruptly. “Goodbye, Hel.”

As he pulled me away, I heard her say over my shoulder, “I will be here. I will always be here, if you decide you wish to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, Hel from Norse Myth is SUCH a cool character. I hope you think I did her justice.


	24. Parties and Plans

**Loki**

The clouds had decided not even they dared to spoil Frigga’s garden party.

It wasn’t a classic garden party, as they went. The queen had noticed some months back that one of Asgard’s public gardens had fallen into disrepair, and since the Golden City could tolerate no defect, she had looked in the budget for refurbishment funds. (Frigga handled Asgard’s finances, of course. The economics of household-running fell under the same mystical banner as magic, and thus it was women’s business. As the wife of Odin, Frigga quietly ran the “household” of Asgard.)

But rather than pay a random florist to save the garden, she’d had the brilliant idea that the community members each provide a single plant, and apparently, friendly competition had spurred the peasants to create the most beautifully cacophonic display of flora in the city.

Today’s “party” was a state visit/celebration to admire the results of the project. Frigga was in attendance, of course, as were Balder, come to support his mother and because apparently the man  _ liked _ this sort of thing; me, to support Frigga as well and because Sigyn insisted we get out of the palace for a bit; Sigyn, my date; and several of Frigga’s female attendants.

The queen met the prominent community members with grace and dignity. She applauded their efforts, and I found myself of a similar opinion. The garden was chaotic, each plant unique and grouped with no ascertainable organization, but chaos was my style, after all.

After Frigga’s speech, we were all meandering through the garden, when Sigyn bent down to smell a cluster of dryas—white-petaled wildflowers with yellow centers—and my brain captured the picturesque image for later.

“This park is so lovely,” Sigyn told me, raising her face to the sun.

“Marry me,” I said on impulse.

She froze. “What?”

I fumbled through my coat for the little box. “Ah, this isn’t how I planned on proposing, but the setting just seemed right, and I don’t want to wait a second longer.” People were watching now—some of them had to have overheard—but I couldn’t care less about their insignificant lives and opinions when Sigyn was in front of me, still in a state of shock, and I was butchering this whole enterprise…

I took a knee in front of her and opened the box, revealing a ring set with diamonds and emeralds. “Marry me, Sigyn, please.”

Wordless, she touched the ring, as if confirming it was real.

There was a definite circle of onlookers now, whispering excitedly. “Darling,” I said, “we appear to have attracted an audience, but you don’t have to answer now if you do not wish to. Do not feel pressured by their presence.”

And a smile broke over her face like a blooming flower. “You silly man,” she said fondly, and she slid the ring onto her finger.

Cheers broke out, and suddenly I didn’t mind the crowd because they provided the background noise that my heart told me should be sounding. If they hadn’t been there, I might have cheered all by myself, which would have been pitiful indeed. But, as the cheering was being handled, all I had to do was sweep Sigyn into a kiss.

~

A typical wedding involved months to years of tedious legal agreements as the two families hashed out bride prices and deals of cooperation, and a prince being one of the parties should have added difficulties on top of that. But Sigyn had no family to speak of, and I simply glared my “I am worth ten of you” royal glare at any busybody who suggested unnecessary complications. Our wedding date was set with all haste for the end of the month.

It would be the event of the season. Invitations went out to every level of Asgardian nobility and quite a few dignitaries from Vanaheim as well. I had no say over the guest list, of course. A prince’s wedding was a political affair. However, I was saved from at least a little ridiculous formality by not being next in line.

As for the decorations, music selection, and Sigyn’s outfit, that was all taken care of by an overeager Freya, ecstatic at the prospect of planning a party with a nonexistent maximum budget.

“This is  _ your _ wedding,” I insisted to Sigyn after another draining meeting with the goddess. “Just say the word, and I’ll tell her to let us handle things.”

But Sigyn declined with a grace that would have made Frigga proud. “It is an honor to have the Goddess of Love plan the ceremony,” she said. “Weddings are held on her day in hopes that she blesses the union. Imagine what good luck will come from her direct participation in the process.”

I humphed.

“A simple ceremony would be more romantic,” she conceded, “but you are the prince. You are going to follow tradition and smile at these strangers, because that’s the way things are done, and if you don’t, the public will feel cheated.”

I rubbed her palm with my thumb, adoring her. “When did  _ you  _ start lecturing _ me _ about politics?”

She kissed me on the cheek, declining to answer.

“I could still do without all the theatrics,” I said. “If it were up to me, I’d just take you to the woods and pledge myself to you under the stars…” The memory of a joke I’d made to Elgar passed through my head, and the pain of his death rose sharp and searing. He had wanted to see me get married, and now he never would. But I could still carry through my almost-promise to him. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like an excellent, entertaining idea.

“You’re thinking something,” Sigyn said. “What is it?”

I smirked and kissed the back of her hand. “My dear, how would you like to have two weddings?”


	25. Two Weddings

**Sigyn**

Tradition stated that before their wedding, the bride and groom would be separated and take ceremonial baths while the married members of their friends and family gave them advice on marriage and sex. Then the bride and groom would be dressed for the wedding. Freya and Frigga had agreed to do this for me since I knew no other married women.

“I  _ was _ married,” Freya insisted, justifying her presence, “before the bastard left and never came back. Honestly, he must be the only man in the worlds who  _ doesn’t _ want me.”

I stayed silent.

We were in one of the bathhouse’s private rooms. Loki would be, even now, in a private room in the men’s bathhouse, receiving the same treatment. And soon we would be wed. The thought made my heart pound.

I undressed and slipped into the tub, a deep circle set into the floor, big enough for five people—but today it was just me.

Frigga began washing my hair with gentle, steady movements, and Freya dipped her feet in the tub. “My little lady’s maid,” Freya said, “all grown up and marrying a prince! I knew it would happen from the beginning, of course.”

“He has certainly changed since knowing you,” Frigga said. “You are good for him. Before, he would have scoffed at the idea of marriage, but now, all he thinks of is you.”

“Thank you,” I said, choking up all of a sudden. I scrubbed a bar of coarse soap over my skin. Symbolically washing away our bachelor- and maiden-hood, that’s what Loki and I were supposed to be doing. We were all politely dancing around the fact that neither Loki nor I was a virgin. But they must have known, right?

“As the Goddess of Sex,” Freya said confidently, “I feel it is my job to give you advice in that respect. And as Goddess of Marriage, Frigga can handle that part.”

I really was receiving the pinnacle of this ceremony. Who else could do it better than these women? I waited to hear what they would say.

Freya said, “All you have to do is be confident and make sure you’re getting your pleasure. That’s about it. Frigga?”

“The duties of a wife are to keep the house with wisdom, raise her children with love, and respect her husband as a partner.”

Feeling somewhat let down, I finished my bath.

~

**Loki**

“This is pointless and ridiculous,” I told Odin as I got in the bath. “Everyone knows we aren’t virgins.”

“It is tradition,” Odin said.

It was the first time we’d been alone together since the night Thor was proclaimed heir, and though part of me worried about Odin’s schemes, most of my worries were reserved for Sigyn and the fact that I would be marrying her later this evening.

Odin stood to my right, next to the bath, in his full king’s regalia, leaning on his ever-present spear. He cleared his throat with grave solemnity and said, “Son, it is time I told you how to please a woman.”

Was he messing with me? It seemed like he was messing with me, in an awkward, father-son way. Maybe things between us weren’t so bad, after all. “I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.

“No, no, this too is tradition.”

“Really,” I insisted. “I mean it. We can skip this part.”

“The first thing you should know is the location of the clitoris—”

I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Do you enjoy torturing me, is that it? Are you getting off on my pain? Well, it’s sick. You should know that. Sick.”

Odin half-smiled and continued talking, but I just tuned him out.

Until sometime later, while I was rinsing the soap out of my hair, when something he said caught my attention.

“And when eventually you tire of your wife, keep your affairs discreet out of respect for her, and be careful not to divulge any dangerous secrets to your mistresses in the throes of passion.”

All humor with the situation drained away, and I was on high alert. “Is that how you feel about my mother?” I asked dangerously. I clenched the sides of the tub.

“It is inevitable,” he said. “Eternity is a long time to be confined to one woman.”

“Is that so?” Standing, I had the urge to attack him, even though I was naked, and he was armed. “As unfaithful as you may be, I love Sigyn. I won’t hurt her like that.”

“Come now,” he said, frustrated with my obstinacy. “Don’t get all high and mighty with me. How many people have you slept with since you began seeing Sigyn?”

I faltered, thinking of the night we journeyed down to Jotunheim. But that was with her permission! It was different… wasn’t it?

The Old Man was smiling in satisfaction. “You see? It’s in our nature.”

“Fuck you,” I said, sliding back into the water.

~

The wedding took place in the palace’s largest hall, gleaming with gold and the light from a hundred torches. Freya had outdone herself; even I had to admit that the decorations were stunning. Swaths of silk draped in gathers from the ceiling. Garlands of roses and peonies hung at the end of every row of seats, and petals covered the pathway down which Sigyn would walk. A ten-person band at the back of the room, accompanied by a choir, played gentle music in anticipation of the bride.

It was lavish, extravagant—the embodiment of everything I used to want. The man I was not too long ago would have relished being drenched in such finary, but now I simply wanted this grandiose affair to be over so I could steal Sigyn away to the real ceremony in Jotunheim.

Odin, who would officiate the ceremony, stood next to me at the front of the room. I did my best to ignore him and his disgusting relationship advice.

I fidgeted in my formal clothes. Today, I would marry Sigyn, the woman I loved more than anything in the worlds. I wondered for the thousandth time if I was dooming her by doing so, but I knew I would conquer fate itself to keep her.

The crowd was a meaningless conglomeration of silks, furs, and faces I didn’t know. I did my best to ignore them too.

Then the band struck up a formal tune, and servants pulled the doors of the hall open to reveal the bride.

Sigyn’s embroidered gown was gathered in layers of folds, trailing on the ground for yards, and the bridal crown towered above her, a monstrosity of gold and gems. More jewels glistened at her neck and wrists.

But despite all this, she looked magnificent.

“Tell me I’m dreaming,” I whispered to Thor beside me. “No, on second thought, don’t.”

Thor laughed.

Sigyn glided down the aisle, regal and divine. She would be an official goddess after marrying me, but she had deserved the title long before. How could anyone seeing her now doubt my choice? How could they not envy me?

As she approached, I saw that her hair was elaborately styled—braided and beaded and threaded with ribbons. Gold powder dusted her cheeks, and her lashes were darkened with pigment. Her small smile attested to her nervousness, and I knew she was uncomfortable with all the attention, but she bore it well.

We recited the vows given to us by one of Odin’s speechwriters. We exchanged rings. The Allfather, the High One, proclaimed in a carrying voice that we were wed, and Sigyn and I shared a chaste kiss.

This wasn’t me. This wasn’t us. I loved Sigyn for her simple kindness, her joy, her courageous spirit. This ostentatious ceremony, with a dress that appeared to be drowning her, was not the Sigyn I knew. But like she’d said, it was expected of us, and we would play our roles to give our marriage all the credibility we could.

We endured the feasting and congratulations afterward, waiting for the moment we could slip away. Sigyn did seem delighted and embarrassed by the mountain of gifts, and I enjoyed watching her receive each one with genuine, enthusiastic thanks. I stood silent next to her, letting her deal with people, and they were smiling when they left.

We partook of the food provided, not knowing if there would be any in Jotunheim, and listened to speeches given in our honor. Finally, the attention moved away from us and onto the party, and I grabbed her hand. “Let’s go,” I said.

I told Frigga that we wanted to make a quiet exit, and she wished us luck. We slipped out a side door and ran through the halls back to my rooms, Sigyn hitching up her skirts. Breathless from the roguishness of deserting our own celebration, we changed into traveling clothes, grabbed the bags we’d previously packed for our honeymoon, and snuck through the secret portal to Jotunheim that lay behind a false stone wall in an abandoned corridor.

My jotun friends were waiting for us. Grinning deviously, they hauled Sigyn and me away from each other to prepare us for marriage the jotun way.

~

**Sigyn**

We stood in a forest with centuries-old trees that looked like they knew secrets. It was approaching midnight, and the dark woods would have terrified me if not for the presence of the jotun women, who could probably scare away any dangerous creature just by baring their teeth.

Sindri and the bald, white-eyed woman (whose name was Hyndla) I knew from my only other adventure to Jotunheim. Though I didn’t know the others, they were attentive and excited as they dressed me in a simple woven skirt that hung to the forest floor, two slits revealing my legs when I walked. The top was a band of light material wrapped around my chest several times and tucked in. The outfit was scandalous by Asgardian standards, but it felt natural here. 

“What iss thiss mess?” Sindri asked, fingering my hairstyle that took Freya and the other lady’s maids two hours to accomplish.

I shrugged sheepishly. “It’s kind of painful, actually,” I said.

Sindri scoffed and began unraveling it. “Aesir,” she said like a curse.

With blue paint, they drew patterns on my cheeks and down one arm. They hung amulets from my neck and gave me bracelets and anklets of colored string, woven with beads and shells—extraordinarily light compared to the jewels at my first wedding.

My first wedding. It hadn’t felt real, more a performance than a sincere commitment between Loki and me. I hoped that after this ceremony, I would feel married. I wasn’t familiar with jotun traditions, and Loki had confessed that he wasn’t much either, but he’d told me roughly what to expect and taught me the only dance he knew.

To complete my look, the women placed a garland of flowers on my head. My hair was otherwise unadorned, crimped in untidy waves from the braids. Then they manhandled me in a friendly way to a clearing.

The air smelled like life. I was left barefoot, and the soil beneath my feet was chill and earthen. Overhead, the full scope of the Milky Way was splattered across the sky, twinkling with all the delight I felt.

The menfolk timed the arrival of Loki to the second. We were pulled into the clearing together, and the first sight of him took my breath away.

He was shirtless, his chest and face painted up like I was, and the lines enhanced his form’s existing shapes. He looked lean and powerful, attractive in a wild sort of way that made me blush. Woven jewelry decorated him as well.

There was wildfire in his eyes as we clasped right hands, holding them at chest level. This, this intimacy in the starlight, evoked the passion our other wedding had lacked.

The jotuns gathered close around us. Hyndla, a powerful enchantress, spoke words in a strange language over a boar that was tethered nearby, then she slew it with a quick slash of a knife, catching its blood in a bowl. She took the bowl to us and sprinkled a few drops of blood on our conjoined hands.

“This sacrifice,” she said, “is for the union of these two people, for its strength and health.” Then a man handed Loki a horn of mead, and Hyndla spoke while we both took a drink in turn. It was sweet, reminiscent of honey. “This drink symbolizes how, from this day forward, your wealth and fates are shared.” The man took back the horn.

Hyndla set aside the bowl and produced a long cord. She said, “As I bind your hands, repeat these vows after me.”

Loki and I spoke the words, eyes locked on each other while Hyndla rhythmically wrapped the cord around our hands.

> “You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself.  
> You cannot command me, for I am a free person.  
> Yet while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give.

> I pledge to you that it will be your eyes into which I smile every morning.  
> I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care.

> I shall be a shield for your back, and you for mine.  
> I shall not slander you, nor you me.  
> I shall honor you above all others.

> This is my wedding vow to you.  
> This is the marriage of equals.”

On the last word, Hyndla tied a knot, and it was done.

Loki surged forward and kissed me, our bound hands pressed between our chests. He was my husband, mine forever, and I kissed him back with a fervor to match.

The jotuns whooped and cheered, filling the woods with their cries. They were physical with their joy, and they all tried to embrace us or pat our backs at once, leading to a chaotic tangle of bodies with Loki and me in the center, still kissing.

I loved it. I loved him, and this moment, and mostly him.

While the boar cooked, there was dancing. The first was the one Loki and I had practiced back home, a partner dance that could be performed with hands fastened together. We spun and thumped our feet in time to the music, the movements that felt silly with just the two of us seeming apt in unison with others, out among the trees by the fire’s light.

We untied our hands to dance along to the next few songs, which didn’t have fixed movements, but Loki and I held onto the cord’s ends, twisting under it as we danced. Once, when I strayed too far from him, he wrapped it around me and yanked me back.

I shrieked at the sudden jerk, then laughed.

When the boar was ready, Loki and I sat on the ground to eat, watching those who still danced. Neither of us could stop grinning.

“This is perfect,” I told him.

“I love you,” he said back.

If possible, I grinned even wider.


	26. The Wedding Night

**Sigyn**

We lay in a circle of trees packed close together for privacy, their roots entwining to form a bowl in the ground. Through the branches above, the stars were visible. Furs from various animals covered the roots, providing a cozy surface on which to rest.

Loki and I spooned, naked, his left arm under my head as a pillow and his right exploring my body. He brushed his hand up my leg, over my stomach, squeezing my breast, brushing my hair back from my neck before beginning the journey back down again.

“Loki,” I whined, wanting him to hurry up and fuck me already.

“Hush, my love,” he said. “Patience. I want to savor this.” He inhaled my scent at my neck then pressed a kiss there. Like blowing on embers, his breath stoked heat inside me.

I could feel that he was hard, but if I couldn’t persuade him to skip the foreplay, I would have to enjoy it. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the soft fur beneath me, the chill night air, and the warmth of Loki’s skin.

“My wife,” Loki breathed. He traced my arm, my thigh, my waist. “You are mine alone to kiss, to hold…”

“To fuck,” I said, reminding him why we were here.

He chuckled. He kissed my neck, his mouth hot, and slid his hand down between my legs. “Shit,” he said, “you’re so wet.” He ran his fingers gently, teasingly through my folds.

I moaned.

“You can not imagine how lovely you looked tonight, in that skirt, flowers in your hair.” He kissed my shoulder. “I wanted to take you right there in front of everyone.”

I ground my hips against his fingers.

“And then, the hand-fastening, and dancing with you, and now this. I wish we could spend eternity together, just the two of us, far away from everyone else and their problems.”

“Me too,” I said. “I love you, Loki.”

“Love. I love, love, love you.” Then he slid inside me from behind, and we both groaned with pleasure. “Oh, Sigyn.” He cupped my breast, dragging out slowly, then pushing back in, stretching, filling.

I had thought that not much would change after we were wed—he would still be Loki, it would still be sex—but everything was different now, knowing that he was my husband.

“I adore you,” he said, and I couldn’t see him behind me, but I could imagine the look on his face, eyes closed, brow furrowed in pleasure as he slid in and out of me.

He held me tighter, fucking me deeply.

Insects sang somewhere nearby, and the sound of our breathing seemed heavy in the darkness. This was so perfect, so right, and like Loki, I never wanted it to end.

Each thrust was a wave of pleasurable sensation, repeating and gaining momentum in a rising spiral. Out and in. Deficient and sublime. I was lost, and I was found.

Loki was warm and solid, enveloping me, and I felt secure beyond reason. I loved him. I trusted him. And I knew that no matter what happened, no matter what trials came, we would face them together.

Gradually, thrust by thrust, he rolled on top of me so my chest was flattened against the furs. I turned my head to the side to continue breathing.

“Like our first time,” Loki said. “Remember?”

“Yes,” I replied. That long-ago night came back to me—when I was his maid having sex in his bed, wondering if it were real. But I didn’t have to wonder now because I knew beyond doubt that Loki loved me, and my imagination could never fabricate such a glorious moment. I had married a prince of Asgard, and we were having sex under the stars.

He laced his fingers with mine, holding them beside my head. Just the sight of his hand, strong and covered with wisps of dark hair, made me weak. Loki increased the power of his movements. “Sigyn,” he said. “Fuck, Sigyn.”

My name was like a prayer on his lips, the syllables sounding sacred in our intimacy. This was a god, and he was worshiping me.

He pounded into me. I felt the fire in the pit of my stomach. The embers were flames now, snapping and sparking and threatening to burn out of control. “I’m close, Loki,” I said, squeezing his fingers.

“Me too,” he said, fucking me more insistently. A bead of sweat dripped onto my neck.

And then my body was shaking, arching, curling in response to him, and I let out a strangled cry, muffled by the furs.

He fucked me through my climax with a few hard thrusts, and hips pressed tight to mine, he came.

“That was incredible,” I said when I could speak again.

“ _You_ are incredible,” he said. Words were inadequate, but that would do. We both understood.

He rearranged us so that I was cradled on his chest, and I fell asleep in peace.


	27. The New Goddess

**Loki**

We spent the day unabashedly caught up in each other’s presence. We’d earned the right to saccharine romance, and I ignored the jotuns when they gave me knowing, teasing looks.

There was another feast planned for tonight, and much drinking, but the jotuns refused our help when we offered to assist with the preparations. So Sigyn and I sat off in the trees where we would be out of the way.

I played with a bit of fire, letting it twist around my fingers, and thought about my rune. “Kenaz,” I said to the curious Sigyn.

“Your rune?” she asked.

I nodded and extinguished my hand long enough to draw the symbol in the dirt: ᚲ

“The torch. The crooked rune.” I gave her my best crooked grin. “I was always rather proud of it. But nowadays, I feel like I haven’t been living up to it.”

She scooted closer and put a hand on my knee. “How so?”

“The fire of inspiration—creativity. Fire is an elemental force, and it can be harnessed for good or ill. Kenaz can mean transformation, purification, and regeneration; it’s capable of both destruction and creation.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “But I haven’t done much creating lately. I want to make something worthwhile, something that will live on after I’m gone.”

She was quiet. Then she said hesitantly, “Loki, are you talking about children?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But, but only if you want them too! I know my first offspring were not… typical, so I understand if you are hesitant.”

“I would love children,” she said, smiling at me adoringly. “The idea scares me a little if I’m honest, but whatever happens, I know that we are in this together.”

I kissed her, pulling her close with a hand on her back. “Would you like to get started now?” I asked suggestively.

She giggled and kissed me back.

“Oi, lovebirdss!” Sindri said, appearing and giving my shin a kick. “It’ss dinner time.”

I groaned and dropped my head to Sigyn’s shoulder. Couldn’t a man fuck his wife in peace anymore?

“We’re coming,” Sigyn said, standing and dusting herself off.

“We are?” I whined. She grabbed my hand and dragged me to my feet.

Dinner was stew cooked in a huge cauldron and hunks of steaming bread. It was delicious.

“I wish Elgar could have been here,” I told Sindri quietly.

She looked grave. “Me too.”

Sigyn seemed to be looking around for someone. She kept glancing over her shoulder with a puzzled expression. Finally, I asked what was bothering her.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “Just, I keep thinking I hear someone call my name.”

“Like a voice in the back of your head?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said. “You hear it too?”

“Wow. Word travels fast. Mortals somewhere are praying to you, Sigyn.”

Her jaw dropped.

“You’ll learn to tune it out fairly quickly, letting only potent prayers through. And if someone sacrifices an animal to you, you’ll receive a boost of strength.”

“But,” she looked pained, “shouldn’t I be responding or something?”

I said gently, “If you respond every time someone calls your name, you’ll spend your whole life running around answering prayers, and people will expect more and more from you until you’re exhausted. The best tactic is to ignore them equally, except in extreme circumstances.”

“Okay,” she said.

I didn’t want her to dwell on the mortals and their troubles, not when we had so much to celebrate. “Hey, I know what will distract you,” I said.

“What?”

“Alcohol.” I grinned and stood up, attracting the attention of the other jotuns. “I propose a toast,” I announced, and they cheered. “To the newest goddess!”

“The newest goddess!” they repeated.

Sigyn ducked her head shyly, looking ridiculously pretty.

I handed her a small glass of strong jotun ale, rejoining her on the ground. “Here, try this.”

She did, and made a face.

Sindri and a couple of her friends burst out laughing. “Too much for your refined Asgardian tastes, lass?” one of them asked.

With a resolute expression, Sigyn knocked back the rest of the glass and set it down.

The women stopped laughing, and I was just as shocked. “Have I mentioned that I love you?” I told her.

She blew me a kiss.

~

**Sigyn**

I woke up next to a dick. I closed my eyes and opened them again, thinking maybe I was dreaming, but the dick was still there, laying limply beside my face. It was Loki’s dick, I realized, which made me feel marginally better.

Then the headache hit me with full force. It felt like Thor was bashing me repeatedly with his hammer. I groaned.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Loki said, his voice coming from behind me.

I processed this new information with difficulty and rolled over. I saw now that I was lying lengthwise next to Loki, my head on his stomach and my legs tangled in a blanket. “Morning,” I grumbled.

He smiled and didn’t stop smiling, which made me angry. No one had any right to smile when my head hurt this much. “Hangover?” he asked.

“Remind me to never drink with you again,” I said, and I closed my eyes on his laugh.


	28. A Son

**Sigyn**

Two months passed. Loki and I were back in Asgard, and his rooms had been expanded to include one for me. I was no longer a lady’s maid. I spent my time reading, wandering the palace, and socializing with the other goddesses.

Being a goddess would take some time to get used to. I didn’t feel any different, except for hearing the occasional murmur in the back of my head, but servants I used to work with bowed to me now. It was bizarre.

Loki had been gone this last week, along with most of the prominent men, on a diplomatic mission to Vanaheim. My understanding was that only men would make up the party to remind the Vanir that, though the two tribes were at peace, we still held the military advantage. Loki should return today, and I awaited him eagerly. I had news to deliver.

I was pregnant. Eir had confirmed it yesterday. Loki and I would be parents soon, and the thought filled me with nervous excitement.

I paced our rooms, tried to read a little, and paced some more, wishing him home.

~

**Loki**

On horseback, Balder and I trudged home along the Bifrost after a long week of politics; I’d ridden ahead because I was eager to see my wife again, and Balder had accompanied me because he claimed he had something to ask me.

“Well,” I told him, “what is it?”

Handsome and thoughtful in the fading light, he said, “I’ve been thinking of getting more involved politically, and I wanted your opinion on the matter.”

I sorted through this revelation. Several months ago, I would have viewed him as a threat, but since I’d given up the crown, I was only happy for him. “That’s excellent news!” I said.

“You mean it?”

“Absolutely. Between you and me, Thor is not the cleverest of men, and I’d feel a lot better about Asgard’s future if you were on the throne instead of him.”

Balder grinned, then sobered. “I’m not trying for the throne, at least not yet. But I do want to make a difference.” He looked so noble, so guileless, confessing to me his political aspirations. No, I doubted he had a scheming bone in his body, but he was level-headed and good-hearted, and he would make a great king if Odin could see for a moment past Thor.

“Honestly,” I said, “I don’t know why you and Hodr are not princes. You’re more Odin’s sons than I am.” I gestured toward his face. “You have his nose and eyes.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You’re right,” I acceded. “But if your intent was to discover if you had my support, you should know that you have it.”

“Thank you, Loki. Truly.”

~

Sigyn stood up as soon as I opened the door, as if she’d been waiting for me. Her face was flushed. “You’re back,” she said.

“I am.” I let my bag drop to the floor.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, “but it can wait if you’d like to rest or something.”

Now I was curious. “Go on, tell me.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

I hated how worried her face was. Did she think I wouldn’t take the news well? Hold on, how  _ did _ I take the news? It was true I wanted children, but it was so soon. Was I ready? “Sigyn,” I said carefully, “I’m ecstatic.”

“You don’t look ecstatic,” she said.

I crossed the room and hugged her, then pulled back enough to look at her face. “I’m worried, too. I’m allowed to be worried. What if you get hurt in childbirth? What if the child is a monster? And having another person I care about more than my own life is a liability.” I hung my head, ashamed of thinking this way. “You married a dangerous man, my love. I have enemies. And the thought of them threatening you or a child…”

“Hey,” she said, soft. “Look at me, Loki.” I did. “I know that much of what you do goes on behind closed doors, and there are state secrets and crises you avert I can probably never know about, and I won’t lie and say that doesn’t scare me. But I knew all this when I married you. I have so much trust in your ability to keep us safe.” She had tears in her eyes now. “We’re in this together until the end.”

I held her tight, careful not to squish her stomach, acutely cognizant of the life within. “I love you,” I said, meaning so much more. “Together until the end.”

~

We named him Vali. He had beautiful brown eyes like his mother, and I cradled him more gently than I’d ever held a thing before. My anger at my father, my desire to be king—these seemed childish and insignificant now. All I cared about was preserving this family I had built.

Vali began to cry, and pain stabbed at my heart. “What do I do?” I asked Sigyn, who was sitting in our bed, watching me hold him.

“He probably just needs to be fed,” she said with a smile. “Here.” She held out her arms, and I gently deposited him back in his mother’s embrace.

I crawled in bed next to Sigyn and slid my arm around her shoulders, still staring at the little being we had created. If I had only done one thing right in my entire life, it was this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your friendly author's note begging for comments. :3


	29. A Storm Brews

**Loki**

“Ready or not, here I come!” I said, striding into the forest where my two sons hid.

Sigyn and I had moved into a cabin on the outskirts of the city—somewhere we could raise our children in peace. As the attractions of the court faded, we spent more and more time away from it. Life was simple, and quiet, and good.

“Where could they be?” I said in a carrying voice. “Behind this tree? No. Under this rock?” I tilted back the boulder and peered under it. “Not under the rock. Okay, I give up! Come out, boys!”

Narfi giggled somewhere nearby, and Vali shushed him.

Grinning, I said, “Oh, excellent job! I see I can’t fool you two. All right, for real this time, the game is over.” And I whistled our signal, a trill of three notes, rising and returning to the first.

Vali dropped out of a tree, and I lifted Narfi off a branch. Vali was bright and eager, and Narfi quieter, toddling around after his brother as fast as his legs would carry him. They were eight and six, respectively, appearing a few years younger by Midgardian standards. Though their childhood would last longer than a human’s, it was still a blink of an eye in eternity, and I was determined to savor every moment of it.

“Boys!” Sigyn called from the cabin. “Dinner time!”

Vali took off in the direction of home, and I carried Narfi, who was sucking his thumb. I kissed my beautiful wife when I saw her. “The fish smells delicious, darling,” I said. I set Narfi in his place at the table.

“Wash your hands before you eat,” Sigyn said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Vali and I chorused.

Yes, life was good. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

~

**Sigyn**

Loki and I made love that night, quietly so as not to disturb the boys sleeping in the next room. He began by kissing me and peeling my clothes off in the darkness. Even after two children, he found my body beautiful, never failing to excite it with just a touch.

He licked and nibbled one of my breasts, kneading the other with deft fingers. Then his mouth traveled down my body, kissing my hips and thighs and everywhere except where I needed him.

I tried to push his head down, but he resisted my efforts. Meeting my gaze, eyes shining with mirth, he gave my sex one teasing lick, and it took all my willpower not to groan in frustration. He was in far too good a mood. I needed him to pin me down and fuck the living daylights out of me.

So I dragged him up by his hair until I could reach his cock, and I ran my hand up and down it, feeling him harden in my grasp.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath.

Loki didn’t protest when I guided him to my opening. He slid inside me, and I sighed. I loved this quiet, careful sex, hips rolling against one another, skin on skin under the sheets.

He held my thigh, bracing himself on his other arm, and fucked me thoroughly, every movement deliberate to reduce noise. There was no skin-slapping-skin, just small huffs of breath, muscles tensing, toes curling.

When it was over, and we lay listening to the night noises of the forest, we had a whispered conversation.

“I’m going to visit the palace tomorrow,” Loki said. “I’ve been away too long, and I fear the spread of rumors in my absence.”

“I wish you didn’t have to,” I said, running my fingers through the hair on his chest.

“Me too.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll bring you back something sparkly.”

But that made me uneasy. With every gift of jewels, now, I heard the unspoken message: run.

~

**Loki**

I left for the city at the break of dawn. As I rode through the gates, I caught a whisper from a guard. “Jotun imposter,” he mumbled at my back.

My reception at the palace grew colder every time, and I wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake to take my family away. If we had stayed, would the gods have seen how happy we were, realized I was no longer a threat? I decided to set up an outing with Thor so he could bond with my children and hopefully protect them if and when the tension between the other gods and me came to a head.

I had lunch with my mother, and she mentioned that Odin was spending lots of time with Mimir’s head. That wasn’t a good sign. It was Mimir who’d spoken the prophecy that led to my children being taken from me the last time.

I visited Odin next. He stood next to his desk, a map of the Nine Worlds spread before him. “Loki,” he said by way of greeting.

“Allfather. How are you?”

“I grow weaker,” Odin said, “and the gods grow restless, as if a storm brews. So I’ve begun demanding human sacrifices from the mortals.”

What the fuck. “Oh,” I said, not quite able to hide my concern. Things were even worse than I knew.

“And Mimir speaks of Ragnarok,” the Gallows God said.

“What does that bodiless meddler say?” I asked.

“Perhaps you can tell me.”

“Cut the games,” I said, angry now. “If you’re accusing me of something, spit it out. Otherwise, leave me alone.”

Odin peered at me with his one eye, the lines on his face seeming deeper. “Mimir says that in the final battle, you, Loki, will fight against the gods.”

Fuck me in the ass. “I assure you,” I said, desperate to change his mind, “my loyalty to you and the other gods is unshakable.”

“Yet you have spent a good portion of your life running off to Jotunheim and plotting for the throne. Am I wrong to suspect you?”

“Completely. Father, I gave up my desire to rule when I married Sigyn. I have children now! We just want to live in peace.”

“Perhaps,” he said mysteriously. “But I warn you not to cross me. If you try, you will lose.”

“I know that,” I said. “Which is why I have no intentions to try, I swear!”

He dismissed me, and fearful, I returned to my old rooms. I retrieved all my emergency funds from hiding places in the floorboards, in a hollowed-out book, and under the false bottom of a drawer. Then I returned home with all haste.

“Take it,” I told Sigyn, dumping the stash before her. “Take all of it. Run away with the boys and start a new life far from here. Vanaheim, perhaps, or one of the towns removed from the city. They are hunting me, my love, and I fear they will hurt you all to get to me.” I took a deep breath and clutched her arms. “I should have pushed you away sooner, but I’ve been selfish. I’m sorry. But I know now that I am going to fall, and I can’t let you fall with me.”

Sigyn mirrored my distress. “Who is hunting you?”

“Odin, and the others will follow where he leads.”

“The Allfather? Our king?” She shook her head. “Loki, he would never hurt you. You’re paranoid.”

And like a fool, I let her soothe me. Convince me it would all be all right. It was true; he hadn’t explicitly threatened me, just hinted and warned.

Narfi came in, wanting to show me a stick he had found, and I pulled him onto my lap. “I think we should visit Asgard, though,” I told Sigyn. “We’re too isolated out here.”

She agreed.


	30. The Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Rubs hands* Here we go!

**Sigyn**

Loki and Thor were taking the boys hunting. They said not to expect them back until after dinnertime, so I was alone in our rooms, wondering what to do with myself. Maybe I would visit Freya; I hadn’t seen her in a while, and it would be nice to catch up.

But when I opened the door to leave, the last sight I’d ever expected awaited me: Balder, holding a long, sharp knife and grinning evilly. I tried to shut the door, but he pushed against it from the other side, and he was much stronger than I. With fear pounding in my chest, I turned and ran.

I dashed into Loki’s office, Balder following at a leisurely pace, his wicked knife still drawn. I rummaged through the drawers. It had to be here, it had to, I’d seen it just a month ago. And my hand closed around the stone just as Balder shoved me against a wall.

He stood close to me in a twisted mockery of a lover’s stance; his left hand held a fistful of my hair, pinning my head to the wall, and his right held the knife to my throat.

But I had a weapon now, held behind a fold of my skirt. Balder hadn’t seemed to notice me grabbing it; he thought he’d reached me before I found what I was looking for. But I couldn’t use the sleeping stone now because the knife at my neck might slip, he might be able to kill me before I was able to reach his forehead…

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, breathless. This behavior was so out of character! I knew the god to be gentle and kind. But it was definitely Balder’s gray eyes that leered at me, and his hand in my hair, baring my throat, was anything but gentle.

He appraised me with a sickening sweet smile. “Maybe to get back at Loki for his place in Odin’s heart that he never appreciated. Maybe I’ve wanted to do this from the first time I set eyes on you.”

If he would just move the knife from my neck, if he would just move it.

“Loki won’t be back until nightfall,” Balder said, his voice low and smooth. “When he returns and sees your body carved with so many pretty patterns, he’ll know just how many  _ hours _ of fun we had.”

Cold horror washed through me. I had never been truly scared before this moment, not in my whole life. No one would hear me if I cried for help because Loki’s rooms were soundproofed, and Balder was far larger and stronger than I, and he had a knife…

“Go ahead and scream, if you’d like,” Balder said, shifting the tip of the knife an inch downward. Then he dragged the edge slowly along my collarbone.

I clenched my teeth to keep from making any noise, determined not to give him the satisfaction. It felt like being sliced with a shard of ice that burned in its wake. Hot blood seeped out from the cut. I didn’t breathe, fearing that any movement would cause him to slice deeper.

“Oh, you’re braver than you look,” he said with a grin. “But don’t worry.” He dragged the tip of the knife down my dress toward my stomach, catching but not cutting the fabric. “We’ll have you screaming yet.”

I smashed the stone against his forehead, and he instantly crumpled to the ground.

I fought the urge to curl up in a ball. I had to get away from here. I pressed my hand against the cut on my chest, trying to stem the flow of blood. Loki wouldn’t be back for hours, so I’d go to Eir. Yes, with the healer, I’d be safe.

I ran.

~

“She’s just through here,” I heard Eir say behind the curtain. “Be gentle with her.”

I sat on an infirmary bed, my knees pulled up to my chest. I’d been there for hours, just waiting, wondering why Balder had done it and if Loki and the boys were safe and who I could trust now.

Loki tore through the curtain, face wild. “What happened?” he demanded.

In an instant, the tears returned, and I collapsed, shaking, in his arms.

“Sigyn,” he said, stroking my hair, “Sigyn, talk to me, love!”

“He, he said such awful things,” I stammered, still crying. “Where are the boys?”

“They’re with Thor, just outside. Who, Sigyn? Who did this?” He fingered the gash in my chest, half-healed thanks to Eir’s magic.

I shook my head. I didn’t want him to run out on me, bent on revenge. I didn’t want to be alone anymore now that he’d returned. And I was frightened to admit that Balder was the perpetrator. If even Balder, the Sunshine God, harbored secret maliciousness, who else might?

“Sigyn,” Loki said more firmly. “Was it Odin?”

“No.”

Loki was taken aback. “Who, then?”

“It was, it was Balder,” I admitted in a whisper. “He came to your rooms with a knife, and pinned me against the wall, and…” I trailed off. I grabbed his arms. “Please don’t leave.”

“I won’t leave,” he said gently. “But you’re sure it was Balder?” His shock was evident, and it morphed into lividness as I nodded. “He won’t get away with this.”

“Loki.” I clung to him. “I was so scared.”

He enveloped me in his embrace, rocking me like a child. “You’re safe now, my love. I won’t let him hurt you again. How did you get away?”

“I used the stone you enchanted years ago to make people fall asleep.”

He pulled abruptly out of my grasp. “Then he could still be in my rooms? I have to—”

“No! Don’t go!” I grabbed him. “Please, I don’t want to be here a second longer. Where are my children? I want us all to go home.”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

I felt pathetic, weak, but Asgard was no longer safe, and we needed to escape immediately.

Loki slipped Eir a gold coin for secrecy and collected our sons, then the four of us hastened back to our cottage.

~

“I’m going to kill him,” Loki said the next day when I asked why he was returning to the palace. “He’ll never threaten my family again.”

I didn’t have the heart to protest. The attack had shaken me to the core. “Please, please be careful,” I begged.

Loki kissed me on the mouth and promised.

~

He stormed back through the door later that evening. “For some reason, the gods have determined that Balder’s life is in danger,” he said sarcastically. “They won’t let me anywhere near him, and Frigga has been traveling through the worlds eliciting promises from everything, living and nonliving, to never hurt Balder. Of all the egotistical—” he cursed. Then he imitated Frigga in falsetto. “Oh, birch tree, promise not to hurt Balder! Oh mountain, oh iron, promise not to hurt Balder!”

“He’s invincible?” I asked with dread.

“He can’t be,” Loki spat. “She had to have missed something, and I’m going to find it.”

He threw his cloak over his shoulders, and I watched him leave again, the bad feeling I’d had since the attack solidifying into a premonition of disaster.


	31. Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me, you guys. This chapter specifically is based on myth. I didn't make this shit up.

**Loki**

After scouring the earth, I finally found it, a plant so small it had been overlooked. Mistletoe. Hardly my first choice for a weapon, but it would have to do. I grabbed some and hurried back to Asgard.

A party was underway in the Great Hall, celebrating Balder’s newfound invulnerability. Looking embarrassed by all the attention, the asshole himself was seated on a table while the gods chucked whatever they could find at him, laughing as knives and stones bounced off his skin.

Only Hodr, Balder’s blind brother, sat off to the side, not participating. Well, it was a shame that he was missing out on the fun.

I snuck over to him, shaping my mistletoe into a dart.

“What’s going on?” Hodr asked, hearing me approach. “No one ever tells me anything.”

“Why,” I said, “Frigga has obtained promises from every substance that no harm shall come to Balder, so everyone is having a good time throwing things at him. If you want, I have a dart here that you can throw. I’ll even guide your hand so your aim is true.”

“Thanks, Loki,” he said.

The mistletoe flew through the air. Balder dropped to the ground. Stunned silence filled the hall.

“Did I get him?” Hodr asked, and all eyes turned in his direction.

I was already out the door. With the threat to Sigyn now removed, I returned home.

They say that at Balder’s funeral, Odin bent down to the corpse’s ear and whispered something into it, but no one heard what it was.

The next day, however, Hel sent me worrying news.

“It seems,” I told Sigyn, “that the gods are convinced that everyone misses Balder, and they struck a deal with Hel. She will return him to the land of the living if literally every single being cries for him.”

“He died, and he still might come back?” Sigyn asked, distressed.

“Yes,” I said, “and I’m worried that every being might actually cry for him. He was so stupidly well-liked.” I thought for a moment. “Don’t fret. I have a plan.”

I traveled to Jotunheim, assumed the guise of an elderly giantess, and waited for Frigga to come knocking.

She did, and with great passion explained how her son had died, yet together, all the beings of the worlds might overcome death itself to bring him back, just by mourning the passing of this lovely soul.

“I will not mourn him,” I said. “I didn’t know this Balder. What’s he ever done for me, eh?”

She begged, she pleaded, and it nearly broke my heart to see her like this. I had to choose between the only two women I loved. But I chose Sigyn.

I would not cry for Balder. Defeated, Frigga returned to Asgard.

So Balder stayed dead, and Sigyn’s attack remained avenged.

But now, the gods wanted revenge. They killed Hodr, because why not? Then they turned their sights on me.

Scouting the city as a pigeon, I saw a group of them leave on horseback, headed in the direction of my house. This was it. The moment I had feared for so many years had arrived.

Back home, I whispered to Sigyn that they were coming. “I’ll lead them on a chase,” I said, “and when I’ve lost them, I’ll return for you and the boys, and we’ll leave Asgard.” Then I knelt, better to speak to my sons. “We’re going to play Hide and Find, all right? I want you to run with your mother deep into the forest and hide as best as you can. Remember, even if Uncle Thor or I seem to be calling for you, you are not to come out until you hear the signal. Can you do that?”

Vali and Narfi said they could. Sigyn picked Narfi up, and I watched the three of them disappear into the trees.

Then it was my turn to hide. I would turn into a salmon, I decided, and swim down the river near my house to the sea. My mind working overtime, I thought a step ahead. If I were trying to catch a salmon, how would I go about it? I had to prepare myself.

I took a ball of twine and knotted it in rows, creating a weave with wide, even holes. A net, I called my invention.

A step ahead, a step ahead. How would I escape this net if the gods used something like it? I would jump over it.

I heard them coming and cursed, threw the net into the fire, and darted to the river.

As a salmon, I swam along the river bottom, but before long, something dropped into the water. It was my net, hastily reconstructed from the burned remains, and I knew that my doom had been of my own making.

I jumped over the top of the net, as planned…straight into Thor’s waiting hands. I wriggled and twisted, but his grip was firm, and I couldn’t get free.

They wrapped me in the net and carried me off. When I could hold my breath no longer, I turned back into a man. But we were traveling not in the direction of the palace, but to the nearby rocky crags.

“Where are we going?” I asked. They didn’t answer.

Down, down, into the earth. Norns, I hated caves. The walls closed in, and if this were my prison, it was a helish one. We emerged into a final chamber. Stalactites jutted from the ceiling, and a large, flat slab of rock lay in the center. I could sense the magic in the air. I couldn’t shapeshift, couldn’t cast a thing.

We waited.

~

**Sigyn**

Odin discovered us all too easily. Magic may have been involved, I didn’t know, but one moment I was clutching my sons, curled up in a hollow tree, and the next they were being ripped from my grasp.

Odin led us back to my home, and I meekly followed because he and Tyr were holding my children, and I feared for their safety. “Get a bowl,” Odin commanded.

“What?” I asked, confused. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter. But hurry.”

So I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the first bowl I could find, then we journeyed to a cave deep underground.

Loki was there, restrained by Thor, and when he saw us, his eyes went wide. “No,” he said. “No! Leave them alone! It’s me you want!”

“What is this?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“Loki,” said the god Kvasir gravely, “for your crimes against the gods, particularly the murder of Balder, we sentence you to an eternity tied up in this cave.”

“Fine,” Loki said, his expression wild, “just let my wife and children go.”

Odin and Tyr set our sons on the floor, and a sickening feeling flooded me. I tried to run to them, but Odin grabbed my arms, holding me in place. I could only watch in horror as Kvasir spoke words of magic over Vali, and his shape began to change.

“Thor,” Loki pleaded. “Odin. Don’t do this.” And we both desperately fought our captors.

I was trapped. I was helpless against the Allfather’s strength, twisting and tugging in vain. “No!” I screamed when Vali transformed into a wolf, the spark of intelligence gone from his eyes. My son, my son!

But it wasn’t over. Another spell was cast, and the wolf-that-had-been-Vali turned to face Narfi. The toddler was sucking his chubby thumb, and now he let it fall, watching the wolf in fascination.

“No!” I shrieked again. “No, please, no!”

And the wolf ripped out Narfi’s throat, spilled his guts on the cave floor.

Kvasir shot the wolf with a bow, and it dropped dead. Odin released me.

Numb, I fell to all fours. They were gone. My babies were gone.

“Bastards!” Loki bellowed as they pinned him to the slab of rock.

With Narfi’s entrails, they tied his wrists and ankles to it, his elbows at right angles and his hands beside his face. And with a snap, the bindings became like iron. Then someone produced a snake, glowing a sickly green, and wound it around a stalactite above his face. It opened its jaws. Its fangs released a steady drip, drip of poison, landing between Loki’s eyes and sizzling.

He screamed and thrashed around so hard the earth shook.

One by one, the gods left the cave until only Odin remained.

“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered. Surely they had plans for me as well.

Odin’s eyes dropped to the bowl, still clutched in my hand, then rose again to my face. “Nothing,” he said. “You are free to go.” Then he too left.

I crawled over to my husband, knelt beside him, and held the bowl above his face to catch the drips of acid.


	32. Explanations

**Loki**

The pain was the most intense I’d ever felt. When I could think again, a small part of me noticed that where the acid fell, my flesh burned, and I would likely bear atrocious scars. My days of being handsome were over.

But most of my consciousness was consumed with mourning the loss of my children. Their deaths had been brutal, unnecessary, and all because of me.

“Sigyn,” I said, voice cracking. “I’m so, so sorry.” What else was there to say?

“I’m going to cry now, Loki,” she said, sounding painfully small. “I’m entitled to cry, and you’re not to blame yourself any more for it, understand?”

Of course I was to blame. But I said, “All right,” because that’s what she needed to hear.

She wept, still holding the bowl aloft above my head. I could just see her out of the corner of my eye.

That damned bowl. That damned snake. Oh, Odin was a clever one, terribly creative with his punishments. Eternal torture, but she had the power to stop it, if she remained here in the dark with me forever. That was torture in itself. I would have to steal Sigyn’s life from her every day or be in constant pain.

How could I make that choice? “Please,” I rasped, my own tears flowing now. Please stay? Please leave? I didn’t know.

We cried together for our children and for ourselves, the poison drip, drip, dripping in the background.

“This bowl is going to overflow eventually,” Sigyn said at last. “I could run back home and get a larger one, but I don’t want to leave you.”

If she left, would she ever come back? “Okay,” I said. “See if you can balance this bowl on my face.”

We were carefully avoiding talking about anything that mattered. The wounds were still too raw. I tilted my head to the side, and she rested the bowl on my cheek. It seemed stable enough, as long as I didn’t move.

“I should bury our sons, while I’m at it,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” And she collected their bodies, mangled beyond recognition, and then I was alone.

But of course, it wasn’t that easy. Of course, the Old Man had thought through his punishment. For as soon as she ran out of the main cavern, the bowl on my face disappeared. I screwed my eyes shut and held in my scream until I was certain she was out of hearing distance.

~

**Sigyn**

I dug a shallow grave and buried our children, no time for a proper funeral. I was acutely conscious that the bowl would be filling in my absence, acid accumulating and spilling over onto Loki’s skin.

When I finished, I dashed inside our house, rooting around for the largest bowl I had, the one I used for baking. It wasn’t there!

“Looking for this?”

My head whipped around, my heart pounding. Odin sat on a chair in the shadows, holding the bowl. How long had he been there? What was he  _ doing _ here?

“I wanted to speak to you, child,” he said.

I should have attacked him, or bargained with him, but I was frozen.

“You should know that you don’t have to stay with him,” Odin said as calmly as if we were discussing an interesting cloud formation, not the suffering he had condemned his son to. “You are free to leave whenever you choose.”

I shook my head.

“Ah, you are too good, too faithful a wife to do that. I thought so. But I wanted to give you the option nevertheless.”

_Why?_ I wanted to ask. _You could have just tied him up. Why murder our sons? Why torture him?_ But I feared him too much to speak. Rooted to the spot, lip trembling, I let the king brush past me out the door, leaving the bowl behind. 

~

**Loki**

All of a sudden, the dripping ceased, and I spotted Odin at the cave entrance. I swallowed, relishing the momentary relief. “Come to gloat?” I asked.

“More or less. To explain,” he said.

I exploded. “Then tell me, why Sigyn? She is blameless! Her only crime was loving me!”

“You swore to me that her condition would be bound to yours,” he said.

The true breadth of my folly washed over me. “But not her _children_ ,” I protested. “They were innocent!”

“They were your children, too,” Odin replied.

“Oh, I see. My wife and sons are just possessions of mine you can manipulate to get back at me, is that it?” I seethed. “I should have known. You never cared for your own children.”

He didn’t react as I’d hoped, just stood there, watching me struggle against my restraints. “Would you like to know the real reason I stole you from Jotunheim as a child?”

“Do enlighten me.” No reason to pass up this chance to learn more.

“Because you were foretold to be the gods’ greatest enemy.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “A fucking prophecy? You know that Mimir is manipulating you, right? Anyone with the tiniest shred of intelligence can see that.”

“Maybe so, but that does not mean he lies. I had hoped to make you love me, but instead, every day you grew more dangerous.”

How long had he been planning this? When had he enumerated his options and decided that the best course of action would be to confine me to a cave with a viper over my head? Or had that been his intention all along?

“And,” Odin took a step closer, “it was I who attacked Sigyn in your room, not Balder. I knocked him unconscious and took his shape intending to kill her. She was crafty, defeating me with one of your tricks. But I thought my plan might proceed anyhow, so I dropped Balder in your room. He woke with a spotty memory and blood on his knife. Did you ever wonder why Frigga was so worried about him? He was suicidal over what he thought he’d done.”

Dismay crept like ice through my blood. I had killed an innocent man.

“After Frigga obtained all those promises,” he continued, “I honestly thought you wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I had plans to kill him myself in a few days and pin it on you.”

“So you achieved the goal of making everyone hate me,” I said. “But why Balder, specifically?”

“Besides the obvious ‘everyone loved him,’ he was becoming too much of a political threat. If he had tried to take the throne, many would have supported him over me.”

“And those words you whispered at his funeral?”

He shrugged. “A confession. Imagine my surprise when they tried to bring him back! Good thing you stopped that, too.”

I would never, never live down this shame. “Of all the cons you pulled,” I said, my voice darkened with despair, “the biggest was convincing them all that  _ I  _ was the evil one, that you told stories, while I lied.”

That got a reaction, finally. Odin grinned, baring his teeth like a wolf.

“But I wouldn’t have fought against the gods, not before this!” I said. “Do you understand what you’ve done? For all you’ve tried to fight fate, this day, you’ve made me your enemy.”

His grin disappeared. “Enjoy eternity,” he said, then he turned on his heels.

“I don’t know which of my children will be the end of you,” I shouted after him, “but I hope your death is long and painful! Personally, I’m rooting for the wolf.”

With a flick of his fingers, the snake resumed dripping acid.

And pondering his words through the agony, I knew, then, that none of the others had ever mattered. It was all, throughout history, just one giant chess game between Odin and myself—except I had never had a king.


	33. In the Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Know your ending" is a common piece of writing advice, and it's especially true when dealing with Norse Myth where the endings are prophesied. I definitely followed the advice with this story. I had most of these final two chapters written from the very beginning in the hopes that I could craft the story in a way that the sad ending wouldn't feel tacked on as an afterthought. I had a goal from the start, and I hope that came across.
> 
> Basically, I was thinking, "Sigyn's story is so freaking sad. You know what might be _even sadder_? If Loki actually loved her, but all he did was bring her pain." So, I'm sorry that I put you guys through this. And thanks for reading!

**Sigyn**

I hurried back through the tunnels to the cavern, the bowl stuffed with things I thought might be useful: food, a couple of books, a knife. I nearly ran into Odin, leaving as I arrived. We didn’t speak, just eyed each other warily as I slipped around him. Then I continued my run, glancing over my shoulder.

What had Odin been doing here? Had he hurt Loki even more? When I heard Loki moaning, I ran faster, skidding along the steep gravel floor.

To my shock, the bowl I’d left was gone. Had Odin taken it? I dumped everything out—the food was all wrapped up, so it would be fine—and thrust the bigger bowl over his face.

When his shuddering breaths had returned almost to normal, he cracked open his eyes. They were bloodshot, the skin around them inflamed and glistening. “You came back,” he said.

“Did you doubt I would?” I asked sadly. Then I noticed his other scars, the holes from where they’d sewn his lips shut. “Loki, your mouth,” I said.

“Oh, are those back?” He laughed. “Yes, they appear sometimes, when I’m _ really _ angry at the gods.”

I decided not to mention them again. “What did Odin want?”

“To inform me just how much of a fool I’ve been.”

“He spoke to me, too,” I admitted.

Loki’s gaze was sharp, alert. “What did he say?”

“Just that I was free to leave whenever I wanted. But he scared me, Loki.” My eyes watered again thinking of my children in the ground. “He’s the Allfather! He was supposed to protect all of us. But you were right about him, all this time, and I didn’t listen.” I buried my face in my elbow. “This is my fault. You wanted us to leave—”

“Sigyn,” Loki said, “this is not your fault, understand? Not even a little bit.”

If only I could believe that. A good wife should have _ trusted _ her husband.

“Tell me about what else you brought. I heard some things fall.”

I raised my head, letting him distract me. “Books I thought I could read you to pass the time. Some fruit, some bread and cheese, enough to last a few days at least.”

“Is that a knife?” he asked, looking at where it had fallen.

“That’s to try and help you escape.” I could barely say the words; they felt so silly. I doubted a little cooking knife could cut through the sturdy restraints on his arms and legs.

“Ah,” he said, “the thought had crossed my mind. But I didn’t think you’d have it in you to kill me. I doubt anyway that the Old Man would have overlooked such a possibility.” Then he saw my horrified expression and grimaced. “That’s not what you meant.”

“It’s for your bonds! _Norns_ , Loki!” For several minutes, I wouldn’t speak to him. How could he say such terrible things? Was he truly in so much pain that he wanted to die?

“Sigyn,” he cajoled, “my love, I’m sorry. Talk to me.”

I was holding back more tears, so I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“But don’t you think,” he said, a caustic edge cutting into his voice, “you’d be better off if I were gone? You are young, yet. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste it down here with me.”

“No,” I said. “We’re in this together. I swore to that when I married you.”

“Then I relieve you of your oath!” he said, suddenly fierce. His hands, tied down near his head, were clenched in fists. “You hear me? We’re not married any longer. I won’t have you chained here out of a misplaced sense of duty.”

“It’s not duty,” I said tenderly. “It’s love, Loki.”

“If you stay,” he said, “I have a condition.”

It wasn’t as if he could force me to leave, but to appease him, I said, “Go ahead.”

“You have to promise never to suffer the poison in my place. When the bowl fills, and you need to toss its contents to the side, you let the drops fall on me for the few seconds it takes; you don’t stick your hand in the way. If the snake turns and begins targeting you, you leave immediately. Promise me!” he shouted.

“Okay, okay, I promise,” I said.

And thus began the first day of the rest of our lives.

~

Time felt suspended in the cave. There was no rising or setting sun to mark the days. Sourceless ambient light filled the room, but it was soft, as if coming from a single candle.

We slept in bursts. It took a while to figure out the best way: with me laying on top of him, arms on his head to keep the bowl in place. After the food ran out, we waited to become hungry, but we never did. We didn’t have to use the outhouse, either. Something about the cave’s magic put all that on hold.

So we just, just endured. I thought about starting a tally to keep track of time, but then realized that trying to count the days when no real days existed anymore would drive me insane.

As I’d expected, the knife didn’t make a single dent in his bonds, but I felt better for having tried.

“It’s strange,” I said one day. “I thought they would come and visit, at least sometimes. At least to gloat.”

“I didn’t,” Loki said. “They don’t want to be reminded of this. No, it’s more comfortable for them to forget us.”

I read the two books out loud, over and over again, wishing I’d thought to bring more. We asked each other questions, told each other stories, and in a way, I’d never felt closer to him. For a long time, we avoided the subject of our sons because it was too painful. But then, Loki let Vali’s name slip, and after an awkward pause, the floodgates opened, and we shared our grief.

Weeks passed.

~

**Loki**

How I would have survived without Sigyn, I didn’t know. Every few days, when the bowl filled, I had to suffer the pain of several drops (with expert timing, we got it down to two), but at least the pain wasn’t constant. At least I had company, even though I longed for her to be free. Even though I knew things could never be the same between us.

I was ashamed that I still lusted after her. I couldn’t see my face, but I knew it was scarred beyond recognition, knew I was ugly now, and wretched, unable even to move.

But there was little to do and ample opportunity to notice her beauty as she knelt over me hour after hour.

She was kneeling over me now, straddling my waist and watching the viper. When she shifted without warning, unintentionally brushing my hard-on, I sucked in a breath. “Did I hurt you?” she asked, concerned.

I closed my eyes. “No, no, you didn’t.”

“Ah,” she said, realizing my state.

“I’m so sorry, Sigyn,” I said. “Please just ignore it.” When I felt her freeing me with one hand, my eyes shot open. “You don’t have to do this. I understand if you are never attracted to me again.”

“Hush, my love,” she said.

I groaned as she sank onto me, longing to run my hands up and down her body. But I resigned myself to this, which was still more than I had dared to dream of.

She was slow, careful to hold the bowl steady as she rose and fell. Her eyes closed halfway, and she bit her lip.

I could lift my hips a little, but that was all the movement I could manage. All the tension and frustration of being restrained built within me. If it had been intentional, if we had decided that for one night, I wasn’t allowed to touch her as she fucked me, I would have found the situation incredibly arousing. But not after weeks of being unable to move.

She whispered my name, bouncing faster, and for the first time, I wondered if she had missed sex too. She felt incredible around my cock—tight and wet.

I could almost forget where we were. I could almost forget that a viper hung over our heads, that I had doomed us to an eternity under the ground, that sunlight would probably hurt her eyes if and when she ever emerged.

Almost.

~

“Let’s try angling the bowl so the poison drips into it and flows right out,” I said.

We were experimenting with ways to improve our situation. So far, we’d determined that the snake moved with me, aiming for my eyes even when I turned and stretched my head, and it would drip into the bowl no matter what height Sigyn held it at, as long as the bowl was directly over my face.

“Sure,” Sigyn said. She tilted the bowl, careful to aim the spillage over the edge of the rock slab.

The snake hissed and slithered to the stalactite’s end then shot a spray of venom around the bowl.

“Okay,” I said once the pain wore down, “I think this test and the last one prove that the snake doesn’t like workarounds that prevent me from being hit every once in a while when you empty the bowl. What if you constructed a sling that would suspend the bowl from the ceiling somehow? You would still have to empty it when it got full, but at least you could give your arms a break.”

“This is ridiculous!” Sigyn said, looking ready to hurl the bowl across the room in frustration. “This whole setup is ridiculous! Why can’t I just kill the snake and be done with it?”

“Please don’t try that,” I said. “What if it fights back? Sigyn, are you listening to me?”

She had balanced the bowl on my face and was grabbing something off the ground. The knife.

“No, don’t,” I protested, fearing disaster. But I was helpless to stop her and, if I admitted it, a little curious if her plan would work. Of course, I would have rather been the one to risk danger.

She stood next to me on the slab, knife in hand, and jabbed it at the snake’s head. The blade hit an invisible barrier a few inches from its goal.

The snake turned and shot a spray of venom at her that slashed across her body and made her tumble to the floor.

“No!” I shouted, hearing her screams, absolutely powerless to help her. I pulled and twisted on my wrist restraints. “You promised! You promised!” She sobbed just on the edge of my sightline. She’d gotten a larger dose at one time than I ever had, and I could only imagine her agony.

“How can you stand it?” she whispered a while later.

I was just relieved to hear her voice. “Sigyn,” I said. “Darling, are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“ _Never_ try that again.” My mind was flooded with images of Sigyn dying just out of my reach, her body decomposing while I looked on in horror…

“All right,” she agreed without protest. She pulled herself to her feet, leaning over me, and I got my first glimpse of the damage. Chemical burns stretched down her torso, a few drops spilling onto her arm and cheek. Her dress had holes where the poison had landed. Tears leaked from her eyes, and they widened as they looked at me. “Loki,” she breathed, “your wrists.”

I became aware of pain, and I glanced at one wrist. The skin all around the binding was torn and bloodied. It must have happened while I struggled to reach her. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.” I tested it, wondering if maybe I’d stripped enough skin to slip out of the restraints, and winced. Not even close.

~

**Sigyn**

“How long do you think it’s been?” I asked once.

Loki replied in a calm, light voice. “Oh, maybe two years?”

“I was going to say two and a half.”

“You think so? Perhaps you are right.”

It was quiet for a moment. “Would you like to play ‘Thinking Of’ again?” I asked.

“Hold on,” he said, “I’m finishing my stretching routine. I tense and wiggle all my muscles from my face to my toes, just to keep them moving a bit.” Another stretch of silence. “Okay, done. You go first.”

“I’m thinking of something that’s huge, and it can be dangerous or friendly,” I said.

“A bear?”

“Nope. It tastes salty.”

He laughed. I loved that he could still laugh. “The ocean. That was too easy. My turn. I’m thinking of something that lives in the ocean and has flippers.”

“A turtle?”

“No.”

“A whale?”

“No.”

“Oh! Oh, I know what it is, I can picture it, but I don’t know the name!” I was distressed. “I’ve forgotten the name. It has blubber, and it barks.” I hated not remembering the words for common objects. As time wore on, the things of the world above faded from memory. One day I would forget the faces of my sons.

“You’re right,” Loki said. “It’s a seal.”

“I forgot,” I said, dejected.

“Hey,” he said gently, “that’s why we do this, okay? Ask me another one.”

~

**Loki**

The years passed, and I bided my time. The knowledge that eventually I would have my revenge kept me going when I despaired. I would be a danger to the gods, which meant that I couldn’t be trapped here forever.

I plotted and planned, running over in my mind all the different ways I could fulfill the prophecy. I imagined making Odin suffer, standing by and laughing as Asgard went up in flames.

Sigyn didn’t like to hear my revenge fantasies, so I talked with her about escape. She could travel to Jotunheim, gather magic users who had been my friends in the days Before, and bring them back here to help. We could send out a message that whoever was able to free me would be richly rewarded. She could return to Asgard and beg on my behalf for clemency, though I didn’t like the thought of her among the gods; I didn’t trust them not to lock her up so she couldn’t return to me, or do worse while I was helpless to stop them.

In my imagination, I sailed at the helm of a giant ship, leading an army to wreak havoc on Asgard. Where I’d acquire an army, I didn’t know, but I decided that I’d find one somewhere.

Fenris was bound, too. I should have freed him when I still walked the earth, but it would be the first thing I did once I escaped. And Hel, she must harbor resentment. And the jotuns, oppressed and massacred routinely, would surely fight by my side.

That’s where I’d get my army, by rallying everyone the gods had wronged. It would be enormous, legions of poetic justice.

“Remember me?” I would shout when the gods lined up to face us. I would keep my disfigured visage. They’d have to peer through their memories, peel back the burns and the deranged look in my eyes, courtesy of the eons underground—finally recognize me in dawning horror.

Their golden armor would gleam in the sunlight, until the wolves swallowed the sun. Their faces would be set in grim lines as they confronted their doom. Ragnarok.

I would flash them a scarred grin. “You tried to torture me to death, but I survived, and now you are going to pay.”


End file.
